FISA Judges Gone Wild
Per the Washington Post, the presiding FISA judges weighed in:
Both judges expressed concern to senior officials that the president’s program, if ever made public and challenged in court, ran a significant risk of being declared unconstitutional, according to sources familiar with their actions. Yet the judges believed they did not have the authority to rule on the president’s power to order the eavesdropping, government sources said, and focused instead on protecting the integrity of the FISA process.
It was an odd position for the presiding judges of the FISA court, the secret panel created in 1978 in response to a public outcry over warrantless domestic spying by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. The court’s appointees, chosen by then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, were generally veteran jurists with a pro-government bent, and their classified work is considered a powerful tool for catching spies and terrorists.
So contrary to the Bush assertions that his sycophant lawyers profferred opinions that his actions were legal, now we see that the key judges aware of Bush’s program expressed opinions completely counter to those of Bush’s hirelings.
Who should we believe? The people whose job it is to interpret and uphold the law? Or the people who were paid well to say “you got it, boss!” as they created plausible-but-failed defenses for Al Capone?
Spin comes, spin goes, but the Truth remains the Untouchable.
