Se non vi fidate troppo di come stanno raccontando in Italia la sentenza di un giudice federale di Detroit, che ha dichiarato incostituzionale il "Terrorist Surveillance Program" voluto dall'amministrazione Bush dopo l'11 settembre, vi consiglio di...

I am way too angry to post on this story even when it broke yesterday, this is being appealed and anyone with a half brain would agree that this is a vital tool in tracking terrorists. A MUST, please put more ears on the phones A.S.A.P. I agree w ........

Right. A five-year exigency strains the limits of "exigency."

Agreed also that the op read more like a civics lesson than it needed to. There are real issues here, though I doubt the result should be any different.

OTOH, in a high-profile case such as this, it's a given that the circuit court of appeals will start from scratch anyway, so why knock yourself out? ;)

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit ruled the NSA violated the First and Fourth Amendments with their warrantless......

Indeed, I’m surprised it has taken so long to come to an accord on matching the law with present circumstances.

Really? Even when half of Congress can't decide whether they want to back the president or not and the other half actively wants him to fail?

But gosh, isn't it wrong of Mr. Drum to insinuate that most judges can no longer make sensible rulings? That sounds almost hostile to the judiciary.

...as of right now, it is illegal, according to this federal court, for the Bush administration to continue to implement its "Terrorist Surveillance Program," and since it is grounded in constitutional conclusions, nothing -- such as Arlen Specter's dreaded bill -- could change that.

If it violates the Constitution, ordinary laws can't authorize it. What I'm less sure of is - If Congress passed one of those oft-threatened "the courts can't consider cases about subject X" laws, would that affect an appeal already in progress? Would they have to wait until a court ruled in Bush's favor, and _then_ forbid further court action? Would that even apply, given that it's still based on Constitutional issues, which are explicitly the Courts' realm of interpretation?

It is quite clear that the government will appeal this opinion, and because the court's opinion, quite frankly, has so many holes in it, it is also clear to me that the plaintiffs will have to relitigate the entire matter before the circuit court, and possibly the Supreme Court. The reasons that the court below has given are just not good enough. This is just the opening shot in what promises to be a long battle.

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A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstituti...