ACLU Disappointed: FISA Court Denies Access to Wiretap Records
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a request for the documents with the FISC in August following passage of the Protect America Act, a law that vastly expands the Bush administration’s authority to conduct warrantless wiretapping of Americans’ international phone calls and e-mails. In attempting to justify passage of the law, the president and members of Congress publicly made repeated veiled references to orders issued by the FISC earlier this year.
Today the FISC ruled that, despite the fact that release of the orders would inform the public about the government’s surveillance powers, the court would not conduct a review to determine whether the legal rulings were properly determined to be classified.
The following can be attributed to Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project:
“The decision is disappointing, both in its reasoning and its result. A federal court’s interpretation of federal law should not be kept secret from the American public. The Bush administration is seeking expanded surveillance powers from Congress because of the rulings issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court earlier this year. Under this decision, those rulings may remain secret forever.”
Writing for the court, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates refused. Releasing the documents would reveal closely guarded secrets that enemies could used to evade detection or disrupt intelligence activities, he said. Sources could be outed, targets could be tipped off and diplomatic relations could be damaged.
“All these possible harms are real and significant and, quite frankly, beyond debate,” Bates wrote.
He continued, “And you are retards for thinking otherwise.” ACLU lawyers did not immediately comment on the opinion.
Of course this common sense approach of avoiding the revelation of our “secret” methods of listening in on terrorist activity disappoints the ACLU. Their history of looking out for the “rights” of our enemies during war time is long and documented. Thank goodness common sense triumphed over the ACLUs’ dangerous agenda this time around. Since it was the ACLU whining that everything should go through this court for approval, this should shut them up. Don’t count on it.
It’s good to see that someone over in D.C. has a functioning cerebrum, eh?
P.S. – Judge Bates was nominated to the federal bench — yeah, you guessed it — by President George W. Bush.
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Posted by Jay on December 11, 2007 6:25 pm
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, News, Politics As Usual, War On Terror
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6 Responses to “ACLU Disappointed: FISA Court Denies Access to Wiretap Records”
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Syndicate Me
Awwww….puir wee babes!
Heh!
I still want to know who and what anti-american companies are financing the ACLU. They would never get another dime from me. I only want to see one document from any ACLU member, they call it a death certificate. Cause of death, severe case of dumba**e$.
Scrapiron. Who is supporting the ACLU? Democrat Trial Lawyers!
Why don’t the ACLU do some investigating on Bill Clinton when he was in office. He used the wiretapping more then any other president to date. I know why because it was ok for him even though he got no court orders to do so. Double standard. If there is nothing in it money wise for the ACLU they will not give you the time of day.
The ACLU gets a lot of its funds from the US Government. These are reimbursements for working on civil rights cases.
I thought the request was foolish. I should have guessed the ACLU with their anti-American world view was behind it. The court surprised me by making a wise ruling.