NSA Warrantless Wiretaps "Unconstitutional"
You’ve probably seen the headlines – Warrantless Wiretapping Unconstitutional. It actually gets better than that. US District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor also ruled that the NSA program must stop immediately. Though, later in the day, government lawyers were able to negotiate a stay of the injunction until the appeal, set for September 7.
Government lawyers argued that Judge Diggs Taylor should not have heard the case at all, because national security would be at risk should they present a defense. But the judge denied that argument. It appears the reason she found that state secrets could not be invoked by the government is that the government already admitted to warrantless surveillance, so there was no state secret to protect. Similarly, she ruled that because Bush has not yet revealed the extent of the data-mining aspect of the program, that the government was able to use state secrets to stop that part of the case.
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has given us a clear interpretation of the Constitution and the limits of executive power:
“We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all ‘inherent powers’ must derive from that Constitution.”
Upholding the importance of the Bill of Rights:
“It was never the intent of the Framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights.”
Making clear the importance of a Separation of Powers:
"Our constitution was drafted by founders and ratified by a people who still held in vivid memory the image of King George III and his General Warrants. The concept that each form of governmental power should be separated was a well-developed one. James Madison wrote that: 'The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.'"
Rejecting view that the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) grants the President power to wiretap at will:
"The AUMF resolution, if indeed it is construed as replacing FISA, gives no support to Defendants here. Even if that Resolution superceded all other statutory law, Defendants have violated the Constitutional rights of their citizens including the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment and the Separation of Powers doctrine."
Judge Diggs Taylor makes it clear that the President has violated FISA:
"In this case, the President has acted, undisputedly, as FISA forbids. FISA is the expressed statutory policy of our Congress. The presidential power, therefore, was exercised at its lowest ebb and cannot be sustained."
She states that the President violated the First and Fourth Amendments:
"The President of the United States, a creature of the same Constitution which gave us these Amendments, has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders as required by FISA, and accordingly has violated the First Amendment Rights of these Plaintiffs as well."
The ruling and injunction:
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor’s Ruling
Administration's statements on the ruling:
Attorney General Gonzales News Conference Transcript
Selected articles:
Judge orders stop to warrantless phone wiretapping
Federal Judge Rules Domestic Spying Program Unconstitutional