Scroll down 7-8 paragraphs for proof it was a looney liberal judge(appointed by Jimmy Carter) who ruled the surveillance program unconstitutional, that has kept our families safe since 2001:
White House will Appeal Judge's Ruling in Favor of the ACLU:
DETROIT (AP)--U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit is the first judge to rule on the legality of the National Security Agency's program, which the White House says is a key tool for fighting terrorism that has already stopped attacks.
The administration said it would appeal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
"We're going to do everything we can do in the courts to allow this program to continue," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said at a news conference in Washington.
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration "couldn't disagree more with this ruling." He said the program carefully targets communications of suspected terrorists and "has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives."
The ACLU filed the lawsuit in January on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which monitors international phone calls and e-mails to or from the U.S. involving people the government suspects have terrorist links.
The government argued that the NSA program is well within the president's authority but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.
The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration already had publicly revealed enough information about the program for Taylor to rule. The administration has decried leaks that led to a New York Times report about the existence of the program last year.
Taylor, a Carter appointee, said the government appeared to argue that the program is beyond judicial scrutiny.
Administration officials said the program is essential to national security. The Justice Department said it "is lawful and protects civil liberties."
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said eliminating it would put the nation in a "very, very weakened position."
"Without programs that allow us to do surveillance of communications and transactions in real time ... it will be as if in the Cold War we had dropped all the radar," he said in Los Angeles.
In Washington, Republicans expressed hope that the decision would be overturned, while many Democrats praised the ruling.
"It is disappointing that a judge would take it upon herself to disarm America during a time of war," Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.
ACLU executive director Anthony Romero called Taylor's opinion "another nail in the coffin in the Bush administration's legal strategy in the war on terror."
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Detroit immigration attorney Noel Saleh, said the NSA program had made it difficult to represent his clients, some of whom the government accuses of terrorist connections.
Saleh, a leader in Michigan's large Arab-American community, also said he believes many conversations between people in the community and relatives in Lebanon were monitored in recent weeks as people here sought news of their families amid the violence in the Middle East.
"People have the right to be concerned about their family, to check on the welfare of their family and not be spied on by the government," he said.
Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, is championing a compromise that would allow Bush to submit the surveillance program to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a one-time test of its constitutionality.
The lawsuit alleged that the NSA "uses artificial intelligence aids to search for keywords and analyze patterns in millions of communications at any given time." Multiple lawsuits have been filed related to data-mining against phone companies, accusing them of improperly turning over records to the NSA.
|
