Wednesday Judge Walker, of the famous FISA cases, rules that Bush is not more powerful than FISA no matter what Bush says. How this will effect , if at all, the other FISA cases is yet to be known. For one thing this case is against the Government, not the Telecoms so the Immunity Sellout would not of affected it anyway.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the "exclusive" means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law.
A quick glance does raise a few questions for me, the layman, by rejecting the claims of authority that should mean Bush broke the Law. If Bush broke the law, then the authority he gave the Telecoms is null and void right ?
I haven't read the ruling yet, or even found a link, so it's mostly guess work at this point. One thing it does seem to prove is Nancy Pelosi's claims that the New Capitulation Bill is so valuable because it makes FISA the "Exclusive Means" is moot. Judge Walkers ruling says it is already the Exclusive Means for the taps. Hopefully the legal eagles will enlighten us what that could mean in the comments.
But Judge Walker, who was appointed to the bench by former President George Bush, rejected those central claims in his 56-page ruling. He said the rules for surveillance were clearly established by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a warrant from a secret court.
"Congress appears clearly to have intended to — and did — establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence activities to be conducted," the judge wrote. "Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities."
http://www.nytimes.com/...
This should at least give Harry and Rockefeller a reason to take another look at the wording and purpose of the Telecom Capitulation Bill. Hopefully it will even give Barack enough of a pause to look a little deeper before this comes to the floor.
Update: EFF has a posting up on this ruling. Here is a link thanks to LisaLockwood http://www.eff.org/...
The good news is that the Court held that "FISA preempts the state secrets privilege in connection with electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes and would appear to displace the state secrets privilege for purposes of plaintiffs’ claims." The Court rejected the expansive view of executive power promoted by the government, holding that the President's authorities under Article II of the Constitution do not give him the power to overrule FISA.
The bad news is that "FISA nonetheless does not appear to provide plaintiffs a viable remedy unless they can show that they are 'aggrieved persons' within the meaning of FISA." The Court ultimately found that Al Haramain had not provided a sufficient showing that they were "aggrieved," but gave permission to re-file the complaint with more information.
P.S. Once you get past the Grammar Police the comments rock. We hear from Lawyers, experts, and even those directly involved in these cases. Only at dkos can we find this type of interaction.