To: Bridge Player who wrote (273332 ) 10/9/2008 12:41:58 PM From: Brumar89 Respond to Court hears challenge of sonar use; Justices appear split about whether the military's needs outweigh risks to marine mammals.What would Obama do? Would maintaining the ability to track enemy submarines be put second to concerns about whales? Recently a judge decided 17 Chinese Muslims trained in AQ camps in Afganistan and captured by Americans should be turned loose in the US. They can't be sent to China - they might be killed or tortured (real torture not the stuff they accuse Americans of doing at Gitmo) so they have to be turned loose on the streets of the US. Now another judge says the navy should turn off its protective sonar whenever a whale is nearby. Gee, you think Russian, Chinese, North Korean naval commanders are watching this case? Knowing that if it goes the right way, they could simply shadow whales and be invisible to American sonar offshore California? A Bush administration lawyer argued that when national security is at stake, the president and his top military commanders are entrusted with setting the rules. For years, the Navy has conducted training exercises off the California coast to test whether ships can detect quiet-running enemy submarines. These exercises are "in the judgment of the president and his top naval officers in the paramount interests of the United States," he added.U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered the Navy to shut down its high-intensity sonar whenever a whale or marine mammal is spotted within 1.25 miles of the ship. beaked whales, in panic, dive deeply to escape the sound, and they sometimes suffer bleeding and even death when they try to resurface. He also cited the Navy's own estimate that 170,000 dolphins and other marine mammals would flee the sonar. "There have been beachings of beaked whales in Southern California. None of have been tied to sonar operations," he said. "Is Judge Cooper an expert on antisubmarine warfare?" asked Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. "Isn't there something incredibly odd about a single district judge making a determination on that defense question . . . contrary to the determination the Navy has made." the "potential that a North Korean diesel electric submarine will get within range of Pearl Harbor undetected." Justices John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter wondered how the Navy could know its sonar would not harm the whales until it had studied the matter. "The whole theory of the environmental impact statement is we don't really know what the harm will be," Stevens said. The justices are likely to hand down a ruling in the case, Winter v. NRDC, within a few months. --
