[FACT comments: The longtime strategy of US presidents is to pack the Supreme Court with judges sympathetic to their political agenda; judges serve a lifetime term.]
US Supreme Court Turns Down Wiretap Case
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
The New York Times: February 20, 2008
Without comment, the court turned down a challenge to the National Security Agency’s program of electronic surveillance without warrants. The program, devised to intercept communications into and out of the United States with people linked to Al Qaeda, began in 2001, shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, and was conducted in secrecy until The New York Times revealed its existence in December 2005.
The American Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit in early 2006 on behalf of a group of lawyers, writers and organizations, arguing that the program violated federal law and chilled their ability to communicate with their clients and overseas contacts. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of Federal District Court in Detroit ordered the government to stop the surveillance in a decision that the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned last July.
The appeals court ruled that because the government had properly withheld information about the program by invoking a doctrine known as the state secrets program, the plaintiffs could not show that their communications had been monitored and therefore lacked standing to bring the case.
The Bush administration discontinued the program in early 2007 and resumed it with Congressional authorization several months later. It urged the Supreme Court to turn down the appeal, American Civil Liberties Union v. National Security Agency, No. 07-468, on the ground that not only was the Sixth Circuit correct, but also that the case was now moot.
The statute authorizing the program expired last week in a Congressional standoff over immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the surveillance. The justices might have been reluctant to enter a debate that remains a live issue. Another case challenging the program, and several dozen suits against the telecommunications companies, remain pending in federal courts in California.
Leave a Reply