Friday, January 26, 2007

OOooohhhh. THIS is why Abu Gonzales hurried to get the FISA coverage for his spying

So he could say this:

CINCINNATI, Jan. 26 The U.S. Justice Department filed court papers in Cincinnati arguing a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's wiretap program should be dismissed.

The department claims the lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiffs, is no longer significant because the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program is now being conducted under the supervision of a secret intelligence court, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Justice Department lawyers argued in papers filed with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the suit should be dismissed because it no longer has any live significance.The move follows an announcement last week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the program, which had allowed the NSA to monitor calls made between the United States and foreign countries without court approval if one of the parties was determined to be linked to terrorism, is being terminated and replaced by a surveillance program overseen by a secret 11-member court.

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1 comment:

Steve Bates said...

What FISA coverage? So far, we have only Alberto Gonzales's word that the FISA ruling actually legalizes the government's actions under the program. A FISA judge says it's OK to make the decision public, but the sadly misnamed Justice Dept. refuses to do so.

If what's left of our judiciary is worth anything, they won't accept Gonzales's "trust me" as a legal argument.