Spy Court
Judge Quits In Protest
US District Judge
James Robertson [official profile], one of 11 members of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) [constituitive statute],
has resigned in protest over the National Security Agency's
secret domestic surveillance program.
Jurist Concerned Bush Order Tainted Work of Secret Panel
By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; Page A01
A federal judge has resigned from
the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in
protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying
program, according to two sources.
U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G.
Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing
an explanation.
James Robertson sent his resignation to the chief justice.
U.S. Congress
Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson
privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program
authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have
tainted the FISA court's work.
Robertson, who was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by President
Bill Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by then-Chief Justice William H.
Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, declined to comment when reached at
his office late yesterday.
Word of Robertson's resignation came as two Senate Republicans joined the
call for congressional investigations into the National Security Agency's
warrantless interception of telephone calls and e-mails to overseas
locations by U.S. citizens suspected of links to terrorist groups. They
questioned the legality of the operation and the extent to which the White
House kept Congress informed.
Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) echoed concerns raised
by Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who
has promised hearings in the new year.
Hagel and Snowe joined Democrats Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Carl M. Levin
(Mich.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.) in calling for a joint investigation by the
Senate judiciary and intelligence panels into the classified program.
The hearings would occur at the start of a midterm election year during
which the prosecution of the Iraq war could figure prominently in House and
Senate races.
Not all Republicans agreed with the need for hearings and backed White House
assertions that the program is a vital tool in the war against al Qaeda.
"I am personally comfortable with everything I know about it," Acting House
Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said in a phone interview.
At the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan was asked to explain why Bush
last year said, "Any time you hear the United States government talking
about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has
changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're
talking about getting a court order before we do so." McClellan said the
quote referred only to the USA Patriot Act.
Revelation of the program last week by the New York Times also spurred
considerable debate among federal judges, including some who serve on the
secret FISA court. For more than a quarter-century, that court had been seen
as the only body that could legally authorize secret surveillance of
espionage and terrorism suspects, and only when the Justice Department could
show probable cause that its targets were foreign governments or their
agents.
Robertson indicated privately to
colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information
gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain
FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had
been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same
concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing
that it was not occurring.
"They just don't know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants
-- to kind of cleanse the information," said one source, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA
warrants. "What I've heard some of the judges say is they feel they've
participated in a Potemkin court."
Robertson is considered a liberal judge who has often ruled against the Bush
administration's assertions of broad powers in the terrorism fight, most
notably in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld . Robertson held in that case that the
Pentagon's military commissions for prosecuting terrorism suspects at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were illegal and stacked against the detainees.
Some FISA judges said they were saddened by the news of Robertson's
resignation and want to hear more about the president's program.
"I guess that's a decision he's made and I respect him," said Judge George
P. Kazen, another FISA judge. "But it's just too quick for me to say I've
got it all figured out."
Bush said Monday that the White House briefed Congress more than a dozen
times. But those briefings were conducted with only a handful of lawmakers
who were sworn to secrecy and prevented from discussing the matter with
anyone or from seeking outside legal opinions.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) revealed Monday that he had written to
Vice President Cheney the day he was first briefed on the program in July
2003, raising serious concerns about the surveillance effort. House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she also expressed concerns in a letter
to Cheney, which she did not make public.
The chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Pat Roberts
(R-Kan.), issued a public rebuke of Rockefeller for making his letter
public.
In response to a question about the letter, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
suggested that Rockefeller should have done more if he was seriously
concerned. "If I thought someone was breaking the law, I don't care if it
was classified or unclassified, I would stand up and say 'the law's being
broken here.' "
But Rockefeller said the secrecy surrounding the briefings left him with no
other choice. "I made my concerns known to the vice president and to others
who were briefed," Rockefeller said. "The White House never addressed my
concerns."
Staff writers Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington and researcher Julie
Tate contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122000685.html
=========================================================
Judges on Surveillance
Court To Be Briefed on Spy Program
By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 22, 2005
The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance
in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her
fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President
Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and
government sources.
Several members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in
interviews that they want to know why the administration believed secretly
listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails of U.S. citizens without
court authorization was legal. Some of the judges said they are particularly
concerned that information gleaned from the president's eavesdropping
program may have been improperly used to gain authorized wiretaps from their
court.
U.S. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, head of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court, expects officials from NSA and the Justice Department to
explain the warrantless spying. (AP)
"The questions are obvious," said U.S. District Judge Dee Benson of Utah.
"What have you been doing, and how might it affect the reliability and
credibility of the information we're getting in our court?"
Such comments underscored the continuing questions among judges about the
program, which most of them learned about when it was disclosed last week by
the New York Times. On Monday, one of 10 FISA judges, federal Judge James
Robertson, submitted his resignation -- in protest of the president's
action, according to two sources familiar with his decision. He will
maintain his position on the U.S. District Court here.
Other judges contacted yesterday said they do not plan to resign but are
seeking more information about the president's initiative. Presiding Judge
Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who also sits on the U.S. District Court for the
District of Columbia, told fellow FISA court members by e-mail Monday that
she is arranging for them to convene in Washington, preferably early next
month, for a secret briefing on the program, several judges confirmed
yesterday.
Two intelligence sources familiar with the plan said Kollar-Kotelly expects
top-ranking officials from the National Security Agency and the Justice
Department to outline the classified program to the members.
The judges could, depending on their level of satisfaction with the answers,
demand that the Justice Department produce proof that previous wiretaps were
not tainted, according to government officials knowledgeable about the FISA
court. Warrants obtained through secret surveillance could be thrown into
question. One judge, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also said
members could suggest disbanding the court in light of the president's
suggestion that he has the power to bypass the court.
The highly classified FISA court was set up in the 1970s to authorize secret
surveillance of espionage and terrorism suspects within the United States.
Under the law setting up the court, the Justice Department must show
probable cause that its targets are foreign governments or their agents. The
FISA law does include emergency provisions that allow warrantless
eavesdropping for up to 72 hours if the attorney general certifies there is
no other way to get the information.
Still, Bush and his advisers have said they need to operate outside the FISA
system in order to move quickly against suspected terrorists. In explaining
the program, Bush has made the distinction between detecting threats and
plots and monitoring likely, known targets, as FISA would allow.
Bush administration officials believe it is not possible, in a large-scale
eavesdropping effort, to provide the kind of evidence the court requires to
approve a warrant. Sources knowledgeable about the program said there is no
way to secure a FISA warrant when the goal is to listen in on a vast array
of communications in the hopes of finding something that sounds suspicious.
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the White House had tried but
failed to find a way.
One government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the
administration complained bitterly that the FISA process demanded too much:
to name a target and give a reason to spy on it.
"For FISA, they had to put down a written justification for the wiretap,"
said the official. "They couldn't dream one up."
The NSA program, and the technology on which it is based, makes it
impossible to meet that criterion because the program is designed to
intercept selected conversations in real time from among an enormous number
relayed at any moment through satellites.
"There is a difference between detecting, so we can prevent, and monitoring.
And it's important to note the distinction between the two," Bush said
Monday. But he added: "If there is a need based upon evidence, we will take
that evidence to a court in order to be able to monitor calls within the
United States."
The American Civil Liberties Union formally requested yesterday that
Gonzales appoint an outside special counsel to investigate and prosecute any
criminal acts and violations of laws as a result of the spying effort.
Also yesterday, John D. Negroponte, Bush's director of national
intelligence, sent an e-mail to the entire intelligence community defending
the program. The politically tinged memo referred to the disclosure as
"egregious" and called the program a vital, constitutionally valid tool in
the war against al Qaeda.
Benson said it is too soon for him to judge whether the surveillance program
was legal until he hears directly from the government.
"I need to know more about it to decide whether it was so distasteful,"
Benson said. "But I wonder: If you've got us here, why didn't you go through
us? They've said it's faster [to bypass FISA], but they have emergency
authority under FISA, so I don't know."
As it launched the dramatic change in domestic surveillance policy, the
administration chose to secretly brief only the presiding FISA court judges
about it. Officials first advised U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, the
head of FISA in the fall of 2001, and then Kollar-Kotelly, who replaced him
in that position in May 2002. U.S. District Judge George Kazen of the
Southern District of Texas said in an interview yesterday that his
information about the program has been largely limited to press accounts
over the past several days.
"Why didn't it go through FISA," Kazen asked. "I think those are valid
questions. The president at first said he didn't want to talk about it. Now
he says, 'You're darn right I did it, and it's completely legal.' I gather
he's got lawyers telling him this is legal. I want to hear those arguments."
Judge Michael J. Davis of Minnesota said he, too, wants to be sure the
secret program did not produce unreliable or legally suspect information
that was then used to obtain FISA warrants.
"I share the other judges' concerns," he said.
But Judge Malcolm Howard of eastern North Carolina said he tends to think
the terrorist threat to the United States is so grave that the president
should use every tool available and every ounce of executive power to combat
it.
"I am not overly concerned" about the surveillance program, he said, but "I
would welcome hearing more specifics."
Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/21/AR2005122102326.html
========================================================
Experts
warn disputed wiretaps could taint terror court cases
By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press writer
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's decision to sometimes bypass the
secretive U.S. court that governs terrorism wiretaps could threaten cases
against terror suspects that rely on evidence uncovered during the disputed
eavesdropping, some legal experts cautioned.
These experts pointed to this week's unprecedented resignation from the
government's spy court by U.S. District Judge James Robertson as an
indicator of the judiciary's unease over domestic wiretaps ordered without
warrants under a highly classified domestic spying program authorized by
President Bush.
Neither Robertson nor the White House would comment yesterday on his abrupt
resignation from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the
little-known panel of 11 U.S. judges that secretively approves wiretaps and
searches in the most sensitive terrorism and espionage cases. But legal
experts were astonished.
"This is a very big deal. Judges get upset with government lawyers all the
time, but they don't resign in protest unless they're really offended to the
point of saying they're being misused," said Kenneth C. Bass, a former
senior Justice Department lawyer who oversaw such wiretap requests during
the Carter administration.
"This was definitely a statement of protest," agreed Scott Silliman, a
former Air Force attorney and Duke University law professor. "It is unusual
because it signifies that at least one member of the court believes that the
president has exceeded his legal authority."
Robertson's surprise resignation added to a chorus of pointed questions in
Washington over the propriety of the surveillance, which the White House
said had successfully detected and prevented attacks inside the United
States.
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said
he intends to begin oversight hearings in January to assess the stated
justifications for the spying.
"When the attorney general says the force resolution gives the president the
power to conduct these surveillances, I have grave doubts about that,"
Specter said.
Separately, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jane
Harman of California, said she was informed about the program in 2003 and
believes it is "essential to U.S. national security." But Harman also
complained it was inappropriate for the White House to discuss the secret
program only with leaders of the intelligence committees.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., the committee chairman, said he participated
in at least six briefings on the spying program since August 2004. He said
he is comfortable the surveillance was aimed at al-Qaida terrorists and
people associated with al-Qaida inside the United States. Hoekstra also said
lawmakers who were notified about the surveillance won't resign like
Robertson.
"We all decided that we are going to stay, and we are going to keep our
jobs," he said.
Under the spying program, secretly authorized by President Bush in October
2001, the National Security Agency was permitted to eavesdrop without a
judge's approval on communications between suspected terrorists overseas and
people inside the United States.
Officials have said they only performed such wiretaps when there was a
reasonable basis to conclude that the conversation included a suspected
terrorist and one party was overseas. Citing national security, officials
have declined to say how many times they have done so.
A court-approved wiretap under traditional surveillance law requires a
higher legal standard, demonstrating probable cause to the spy court that
the target is an agent of a foreign power, such as a terrorist group. That
law also says no such wiretaps can be performed except under its provisions.
Since the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the government has
focused on preventing and disrupting attacks rather than building court
cases against suspected terrorists. But experts cautioned that future legal
prosecutions could be tainted if evidence was uncovered about a terror plot
using a wiretap determined to be improper.
"Imagine if there is evidence critical to a criminal prosecution and the
defendant challenges the evidence because it is constitutionally suspect,"
said Beryl Howell, former general counsel for the Senate Judiciary
Committee. "It could jeopardize any criminal case."
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-22-05/a09wn237.htm
============================================
Did George
Bush Break the Law?
Posted by Tim Tagaris on December 20, 2005 at 12:17 PM
http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/12/did_george_bush.php
(Moments ago, Governor Dean sent out this letter
to supporters across the country. Please take a moment to
add your name to his on the
Freedom of Information Act request -- Tim)
http://www.apfn.org/pdf/20051220_OLC_FOIA_2p.pdf
This is not an easy letter to write, and I'm afraid it
may be a hard one to believe.
By now you have probably heard the news that George Bush
is using the National Security Agency to conduct
surveillance on American citizens without the consent of any
court. After initially refusing to confirm the story, the
President has admitted to personally overseeing this
domestic spying program for years and he says he intends to
continue the program.
These actions explicitly violate a law designed to
protect US citizens. But the administration says that other
laws somehow allow for this unprecedented use of a foreign
intelligence agency to spy on Americans right here in the
United States. According to reports, political appointees in
the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel wrote
still-classified legal opinions laying out the supposed
justification for this program.
I have asked our General Counsel to draft a Freedom of
Information Act request for the relevant legal opinions and
memos written by that office. Since the program's existence
is no longer a secret, these memos should be released --
Americans deserve to know exactly what authority this
administration believes it has.
You can help pressure the administration to release these
documents by signing on to our Freedom of Information Act
request in the next 48 hours:
www.democrats.org/foia
This extra-legal activity is even more disturbing because
it is unnecessary -- the administration already has access
to a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That
court was created precisely to provide speedy, secure
judicial review to the actions of our intelligence agencies.
To allow authorities act as quickly as possible,
officials can even apply for a retroactive warrant days
after the surveillance has already begun. Secret warrants
have been approved over 19,000 times -- only five
applications were rejected in nearly thirty years. The
court, which regularly acts within hours, is hardly a
roadblock, but it prevents abuse by providing the oversight
required by our system of checks and balances.
This administration must demonstrate clearly what legal
authority allows it to disregard criminal prohibitions on
unilateral domestic spying. Sign on to the request now -- it
will be delivered on Thursday:
www.democrats.org/foia
In an interview on Monday, Attorney General Alberto
Gonzalez admitted that the administration asked certain
Members of Congress about getting a new law to allow spying
on Americans without a warrant. Realizing that even a
Republican-controlled Congress wouldn't authorize such a
measure, they decided to manipulate current law and proceed
with the program anyway.
Manipulation of a law like this is dangerous. The same
Office of Legal Counsel used vague assertions of sweeping
authority in the infamous torture memos. The victim of this
reasoning is the rule of law itself -- when this
administration asserts sweeping authority to step over any
line of legality, it asserts that there are no lines at all.
Does this administration believe there are any lines it
can't cross? Americans deserve to know. Join our Freedom of
Information Act request now:
www.democrats.org/foia
Some Republicans will try to pretend that this is just
another political fight. But Americans of every political
viewpoint are rightfully disturbed by this extra-legal
activity. The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, Arlen Specter, shocked by the report of this
activity, promised to convene hearings in January.
Even Bob Barr, who was one of the most conservative
members of Congress and the first member to file articles of
impeachment against President Clinton, said:
"What's wrong with it is several-fold. One, it's bad
policy for our government to be spying on American citizens
through the National Security Agency. Secondly, it's bad to
be spying on Americans without court oversight. And thirdly,
it's bad to be spying on Americans apparently in violation
of federal laws against doing it without court order."
We need to know whether George Bush went beyond the
limits of the law -- and whether he and his administration
believe that there are any limits at all. Please join this
important request:
www.democrats.org/foia
Even after the press found out about these actions, the
administration tried to cover up its existence. According to
Newsweek, George Bush summoned the publisher and executive
editor of the New York Times to the Oval Office to try to
stop them from running the story of these illegal
activities.
We have seen this kind of arrogance of power before.
Richard Nixon once said in an interview that, "if the
president does it, it can't be illegal."
He found out that wasn't true. This administration may
need a reminder.
Thank you.
Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
http://www.democrats.org/a/2005/12/did_george_bush.php
=====================================================
Judge who resigned from spy court critical of detainees' treatment
BY CAROL ROSENBERG,
http://www.ledgerenquirer.com, 12/21/05
Knight Ridder Newspapers
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/nation/13459916.htm
The federal judge who quit the nation's secret spy court in protest over the
Bush administration's covert domestic wiretaps has been one of the
judiciary's most active and feisty critics of the Guantanamo Bay detention
center in Cuba, where hundreds of foreigners have been held for years
without charge.
Despite his resignation from the spy court, U.S. District Judge James
Robertson, 67, remains on the federal bench and is expected to issue another
ruling in a Guantanamo case later this week.
The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is perhaps the most
secretive in America, created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
It reviews U.S. government requests for surreptitious eavesdropping to
gather intelligence on suspected U.S. enemies. Last year, according to a
report to Congress, it received 1,758 warrant requests - and approved all
but four.
President Bush set off a political and civil libertarian firestorm on
Saturday by confirming a New York Times story that he'd secretly authorized
the eavesdropping of U.S-foreign calls, as well as some e-mail, without
seeking warrants, as part of a National Security Agency program to gather
intelligence on al-Qaida.
Bush administration officials cited the need for "agility" in bypassing the
FISA court - despite its ability to obtain warrants after the fact. Now the
Senate Judiciary Committee is calling hearings to examine Bush's assertion
that his war powers permitted him to authorize the eavesdropping program,
which he did more than 30 times.
"Apparently Judge Robertson did not want to aid and abet criminal NSA
electronic surveillance," the New York Center for Constitutional Rights said
in a statement. The center has alleged for four years that Bush has been
overstepping his war powers in his Guantanamo and enemy combatant practices.
Robertson was unrelenting in his criticism of the Bush administration when
he shut down the Pentagon-created Guantanamo war-crimes court a year ago in
a 45-page opinion that accused the White House of using a pick-and-choose
approach on prisoner of war policies.
"The government has asserted a position starkly different from the positions
and behavior of the United States in previous conflicts," he wrote, "one
that can only weaken the United States' own ability to demand application of
the Geneva Conventions to Americans captured during armed conflicts abroad."
On Nov. 8, 2004, Robertson issued a restraining order against the Pentagon's
military commission accusing Salim Hamdan of Yemen of war crimes or serving
as Osama bin Laden's driver. That same day, 1,300 miles away, a Marine
delivered the ruling to an Army colonel at Guantanamo, bringing the
president's war-crimes court to a halt.
Robertson, who was appointed to the bench by President Clinton in 1994 and
to the FISA court by Supreme Court Justice William H. Rehnquist in 2002, has
repeatedly bristled at the government's exercise of war powers since the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Duke University law professor Scott Silliman cast Robertson as one of the
judiciary's leading critics of the president's war powers; his Hamdan ruling
declared the president's commissions both unconstitutional and in defiance
of the Geneva Conventions.
"He feels strongly that the rule of law must pertain to some of these
cases," said Silliman, who doesn't know the judge but has read his rulings.
"He is aware of the fact that until a court rules on what rights these
detainees at Guantanamo Bay have, they are in legal limbo."
A federal appeals court overruled Robertson on the war-crimes commission,
setting the stage for a Supreme Court showdown. Oral arguments are in March.
In the meantime, Silliman said, it appears that Robertson is concerned that
the Bush administration's use of warrant-less wiretaps may have contaminated
some FISA certifications.
By resigning, "Robertson is adding his voice to Congress and saying there
needs to be some focus put on these claims of presidential authority," said
Silliman, a retired Air Force judge advocate and head of Duke's Center on
Law Ethics and National Security.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the NSA surveillance program
Wednesday.
"I'm not going to speculate why a judge would step down from the FISA
court," he said. "We believe the president has both the statutory authority
and constitutional authority to engage in the intelligence during a time of
war with our enemy."
---
[JR: By resigning, Robertson may be adding his voice to Congress and saying
there needs to be some focus put on these claims of presidential authority
... however without him, FISA will not have him as a Rule of Law balance on
the panel. His replacement may be from Dubya's camp and not challenge his
unconstitutional policies.]
===============
Bush's Secret 'Kangaroo' Court
........Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations
that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA
surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court
Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying
program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted
that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.
"They just don't know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants
-- to kind of cleanse the information," said one source, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA
warrants. "What I've heard some of the judges say is they feel they've
participated in a Potemkin court."...
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/bush_court.htm
“Secret law is an abomination,” wrote Professor Kenneth Davis in
Administrative Law Treatise 137 in 1970. This quote has been cited in
numerous federal cases involving freedom of information act (F.O.I.A.)
requests. Two of the cases, Cox v. United States Department of Justice, 576
F.2d 1302, 1309 (8th Cir. 1978) and Stokes v. Brennan, 476 F.2d 699, 701-02
(5th Cir. 1973) are just two examples where the courts argued that secret
law is wrong and government agencies, which the Courts are, are to make
their documents available for public inspection. It is crucial to public
confidence in the courts that judges be seen as enforcing the law and
obeying it themselves. U.S. v. Muniz, 49 F.3d 36, 43 (1st Cir. 1995).
Sounds good so far.
FULL REPORT:>>
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/secretcourts.htm
=====================================================
Spy court judges to meet with Bush
By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Published December 22, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Judges on a court overseeing U.S. government intelligence
matters set a meeting with Bush administration officials on spying on people
in the United States.
Last week The New York Times reported the National Security Agency, acting
on orders from President George Bush, was monitoring telephone calls and
e-mail communication in the United States. Bush has said the program is
constitutional since one end of the watched conversation was in a foreign
country.
But judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, led by U.S.
District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, say they plan to ask Justice
Department and National Security Agency personnel about the legality of the
program, The Washington Post reported Thursday. The newspaper said
Kollar-Kotelly sent e-mail to her FISA court colleagues about a meeting,
probably next month in Washington, about the program.
The Post earlier reported one of the 10 FISA judges had resigned because of
the NSA program.
Some legislators have asked why the administration didn't use the FISA court
for the NSA program, since it was set up in the 1970s to deal with
intelligence questions and issue warrants -- sometimes after the fact -- for
some surveillance.
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20051222-124842-6558r
APFN POGO RADIO YOUR WAY
http://www.apfn.net/pogo.htm
George Orwell's 1984
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/1984.htm
BUSH "SEIZING DICTATORIAL POWER"
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/seize.htm
