A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush…
The ruling delivered a blow to the Bush administration’s claims that its surveillance program, which Mr. Bush secretly authorized shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was lawful. Under the program, the National Security Agency monitored Americans’ international e-mail messages and phone calls without court approval, even though the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, required warrants.
The Justice Department said it was reviewing the decision and had made no decision about whether to appeal.
The ruling by Judge Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, rejected the Justice Department’s claim — first asserted by the Bush administration and continued under President Obama — that the charity’s lawsuit should be dismissed without a ruling on the merits because allowing it to go forward could reveal state secrets.
See you in chambers, buttercup.
I’m glad to see the ruling and have always been disdainful of domestic surveillance with a warrant. Bush and Cheney may be blamed for the start of it, but Obama has Holder’s reins in his hands and has gladly given Holder his head in this matter.
I expect you’re right, Lex, that this will end up in SCOTUS, probably ahead of less important Healthcare.
Many of the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act I have problems with. In most cases the time to get a warrant is minimal, and I do believe that sometimes surveillance can be put in place and then warrants obtained. I’m always very leery of giving the government any power beyond what the Constitution allows.
Leery, Hell! Color me as Absolutely Opposed.
Shoulda been ‘without a warrant’.
Ditto on Patriot Act; hugely mislabeled. Should have been ‘Desperate Tyrants Act’.
If the NSA want’s a warent, they should have 24/7 judges. And the judges better know the Con. and have access to OPSEC.
Point of order: Under FISA’s *original* provisions, a *prior* warrant was not required, but a *simultaneous* warrant was in order to monitor a communication if the following criteria applied:
1. The conversation must have originated outside the US or its territories; and
2. The conversation must have been intercepted by a station *outside* the US or its territories; and
3. The monitoring agents had reasonable suspicion the conversation involved terrorist activities.
Further,
4. If the agents monitoring the conversation heard anything that would indicate there was an imminent terrorist attack being planned or actually in progress, they could initiate immediate action while simultaneously requesting the warrant.
That’s the loophole the Dems based all their “eavesdropping without a warrant” screaming about, and that’s the loophole they *closed* when FISA was renewed.
It didn’t stop them — including then-Senator Obama — from continuing to scream “invasion of privacy” until *after* Obie was elected, of course.
Chalk up another one for the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Luv ya, Dimowits — don’t ever change…
Please help me out with the interpretation here…does the above mean that every Intelligence officer has to apply for a warrant to intercept possible actionable intelligence when overseas?
Suppose, for instance, a known insurgent cell phone in Afghanistan makes a call to a US number. The call is intercepted, and US forces overhear him telling a relative in the US that they have a big car bomb set up to explode when the next convoy passes by. Does that intercept then suddenly violate US law? I don’t think it’s realistic to expect every soldier to have the attorney general’s number on speedial to get the paperwork going in order to file for a warrant within 72 hours of hearing said message.
Liz, it gets very complicated depending on multiple circumstances. And while I’m sympathetic with Mongo and Joe, I’ve worked this system. Like anything else, it can be perverted, but as it stands it protects the rights of American citizens very, very solidly. The spooks that collect these signals guard anything that might be US with extreme vigilance, to the point that “tapping” bad guy one and bad guy two, both of whom are not US citizens and both of whom live outside the US (hence are not US persons under the Intelligence Oversight Act, a much older law than this one), requires a case to satisfy several lawyers before anyone rings up the judge.
Whether or not anyone likes these powers, they were in existence long before Bush and they are not going away. The Patriot Act did little more than collect them under one umbrella and made them all equally subject to US law. If al-Haramain (if it is truly a US corporation or person) was monitored that long without a warrant, either someone screwed up, or there are indeed national secrets involved that the government is choosing not to reveal in order to exonerate itself. Based on my experience, I’d put my money on the latter.
Liz, I should add that the tactical collector, the guy in Afghanistan who intercepts the hypothetical phone call to the USA, is not limited in his use of the information gathered, even though there apparently was a US person on the other end, to protect US forces or to continue collection on the Afghan-side caller. This is not really a problem on the intelligence side because the US intelligence services cannot collect on US persons, period, without the specified warrant and for a limited period only (and the case that already passed through a gauntlet of lawyers). If during that period it becomes apparent that the US person is up to no good, then the FBI takes the lead and the continued monitoring falls under a different set of legal authorities. That’s also where legal prosecution and the issue of unlawfully obtained evidence comes in, which is really what al-Haramain is arguing–they can’t be prosecuted for supporting terrorism because the wiretap evidence was illegally obtained. Al-Haramain is not in the least interested in protecting the rights of US citizens.
BTW, Skip — during the days before Congress closed the loophole, there *was* a Federal judge (assigned on a rotating basis) who had the “additional duty” of signing NSA-requested warrants 24/7.
And you can bet the ranch that any agent who knocked on a judge’s door at 0300 to have a warrant signed made *real* sure that he had something worth waking that judge up for.
My questions is, ignoring the obvious venue shopping, is there any other even remotely rational reason this was in the hands of a Federal District Court Judge in SAN FRANCISCO? Wouldn’t it have been more relevant to be held in… I dunno DC?