A federal judge has rebuffed the Obama administration's latest attempt to defend illegal Bush-era eavesdropping, ruling that a now defunct US Islamic charity, Al-Haramain, and two of its lawyers are entitled to money damages because government agents failed to obtain a warrant before tapping their phones.
Who wants to bet this decision will be overturned?
District Judge Vaughn R. Walker of San Francisco determined, based solely on publicly available information, that the US government violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by installing wiretaps to monitor Al-Haramain telephone conversations without obtaining a warrant from the secret FISA court in Washington, D.C.
The gentleman should recieve a Medal of Freedom from some future President. It's a first step, and likely to be overturned by a quisling higher court, but at least one judge is on record that the government has overstepped it's bounds. Don't expect Obama or his minions to support this step away from government power.
I'll let you read the rest of the article. Perhaps there was a reason to spy on Al Haramain. I don't know if it was needed or not. If it was that important, FISA provided a way to get a court order to do so. Perhaps FISA is so bad a law that it couldn't stand up to a court challenge. There is one good final quote, though, which sums up the situation quite nicely:
Jon Eisenberg, one of the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs, told the press after the ruling, "The Obama Administration stepped right into the shoes of the Bush Administration, on national security generally and on this case in particular," adding that "Even though I have the security clearance, I don't have the 'need to know,' so I can't see anything. This is Obama. Obama! Mr. Transparency! Mr. Change! It's exactly what Bush would have done."
Power corrupts. The question is whether Mr. Obama was corrupt before he became President. We know, at least to a small extent, where he is now.
Read the rest here.