Posted on 12/27/2005 7:23:57 PM PST by ThePythonicCow
WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 - Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.
The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.
The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.
The question of whether the N.S.A. program was used in criminal prosecutions and whether it improperly influenced them raises "fascinating and difficult questions," said Carl W. Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond who has studied terrorism prosecutions.
"It seems to me that it would be relevant to a person's case," Professor Tobias said. "I would expect the government to say that it is highly sensitive material, but we have legal mechanisms to balance the national security needs with the rights of defendants. I think judges are very conscientious about trying to sort out these issues and balance civil liberties and national security."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
James Risen needs to go to jail.
I'll bet the NYSlimes are just elated. If they are not brought up on treason charges, something is terribly wrong with our country.
Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.
I thought that the procecutor was representing "the people" not a President?
Someone needs to start spying on the New York Times.
Find out where they get all their leaks from. I bet the spying would lead you to democrat staffers on the hill or clintonistas in the cia, nsa, or justice department.
I think you guys had better take a look at this one.
Great point...I knew that line about "the Bush Administration's victories" rubbed me the wrong way..
Thanks for pointing that out.
Support Al Qaeda - Give to the ACLU.
or maybe
Support Al Qaeda - Give to the DNC.
Make damn sure someone calls Klinton as a witness. He s KEY!!!
The NY Times keeps cheering for the enemy. It's twisted.
I wonder about these challenges. Wouldn't there be legal precedence set by the Aldrich Ames case? In that case Klintoon authorized the break in and placement of bugs without a warrant. That was defended by the Justice Department on the grounds that they needed to place the bugs quickly and he was serving a foreign power.
They do not have to do that.
All they have to do is arrange for their clints to be tried in Tampa, Florida.
The jury will walk then in two shakes of a sheep's tail.
They do not have to challenge anything. They do not have to call any witnesses.All they have to to is to give it to the jury.
So, we are already seeing the rotten fruits of this treasonous leak from the NSA. Well, as long as you have liberals in career positions at these agencies, there is no end to anti Republican administration and anti-American result.
If this doesn't tip the boat amongst Republicans, I don't know what in the world will.
Wake up DOJ. Start the Grand Juries on this crap and tell Fitzgerld to go stick it.
Wake Up Specter. Instead of getting to bottom of the legality of this. Start the hearings on the leakers. The NY Slimes wants convited terrorists to roam free. Have you idiots in Washington learned nothing from 9/11? Have you at all?
Not good. Depending on the judge(s) deciding the outcome of these cases. Gonzales is going to be pretty busy next year.
Why hasn't Risen been subpoenaed by the Justice Department to testify who leaked secret information to him. And his editor, since during the Judith Miller business the Times editors told us that reportes had a duty to tell them their sources.
Jail the SOBs.
Along with a few current & former CIA employees and other MSM leakers & exploiters. I heard one man on Rush's show today say that if any of his family was killed by TERRORISTS he was bringing a class action lawsuit against the leakers including the NYT!
If you ever needed proof of the damage the NYT has done to our national security, here it is.
Good reminder about the Aldrich Ames case. I keep forgetting about that one.
"the Bush Administration's victories" rubbed me the wrong way..
Interesting, isn't it. Bush procecutions! Everything points to Bush.
Reid declared the filibuster of the Patriot Act as a defeat of Bush. Same mentality.
There was a post yesterday about the NYT reporting during WWII. I can't remember the details. Something about how the yleaked the landing at Normandy but they presented it as a "what if" scenario.
They've been at it a long time. IMO, it's part of what Sen. McCarthy warned us of years ago. Communists in our midst.
Which is Risen's way of saying, lawyers are working to free murdering, Islamic terrorists so they will be able to kill MORE Americans.
Punctuation is your friend. Also judging from some of your previous posts I see you have a potty mouth. Somehow you remind me of folks that frequent DU. Cause you really have nothing of value to add to any discussion.
Welcome to FR.

Carl W. Tobias
Member, Civil Justice Reform Act Advisory Group, United States District Court for the District of Montana (1994-present)
Just a thought - it seems journalists are very much cut from the "dish it out, but can't take it" school of whining.
Is there an effective, LEGAL "leaking" campaign which could conceivably be launched against the New York Times? What kind of information could be made public - which would give them a taste of their own medicine?
Again let me stress, just looking for 100% legal ideas here. How can we turn the tables on the NYT?
There's a LOT OF PEOPLE who could be mobilized to actively oppose them. More every day.
Where can we start?
Notice that the article only mentions Muslims who have complained about being spied on. And those Muslims coincidentally have ties to Al Queda.
Oh Damn! Where is the red flag???????
Larry to the rescue!
Court Refuses U.S. Bid to Shift Terror Suspect
Author: NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, Dec. 21
snip
Prof. Carl W. Tobias of the University of Richmond Law School, who has written about the government's legal strategy in terrorist cases, said that the ruling on Wednesday was an extraordinary rebuff to the Bush administration by the judicial branch.
"It's obvious that the government thought that its motion to transfer Padilla would be perfunctory," Professor Tobias said. But administration lawyers had not counted on the possibility that the appeals court judges would feel ill used in expending their institutional capital in support of Mr. Bush's action only to have the government decide that it no longer wanted the authority that it had sought so strongly.
http://tinyurl.com/7wxza
Next comes "the class action lawsuit" followed by "the settlement".
9TH CIRCUIT SPLIT
House's abusive bypass
By Carl Tobias
Special to The National Law Journal
November 21, 2005
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor recently warned that relations between the federal courts and some members of Congress were worse than at any period in her lifetime. She lamented the deteriorated state of relationships involving the coordinate federal government branches at last summer's judicial conference of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The 9th Circuit is the appeals court that serves the western United States, and O'Connor is the Supreme Court justice who is responsible for that court.
http://tinyurl.com/9knvg
Nice to know all you can do is bash me instead of getting as angry and maybe if more Conservatives got a little more angry we would'nt be constantly losing the war of words and looking so damned weak because we never fight back. Sorry if I am not as intelligent and articulate as you may be but I am PISSED off and I wish more conservative would be including those running our country.
Is "citizen's arrest" a legal myth?
Can James Risen be arrested for treason?
Rush predicted this. He said when the New York Times threw Judith Miller overboard, it was gonna launch a full frontal assault on the Bush administration. As he predicted, it's on.
And looks like no let up in sight either. We can only hope that in their zeal to destroy The President, they themselves are destroyed instead. Any ideas on how that'll happen?
Some of these freaks will go free...the ACLU will get an injunction prohibiting any further suvelence...
One of them will get a plan off and kill many people...
And they will blame GW....
they are fighting even the most reasonable approaches to fighting islamo facism...
One bomb in one city and there wont be enough leftists to protect mecha anymore...
it seems that the war in Iraq is not the only one they want to "cut and run" from. they also want to stop the war on terror.
what can they possibly hope to gain from this?
This is rather infuriating.....somehow I'm supposed to get all outraged like Russ Feingold and Nancy Pelosi are that Bin Laden's buddies had their cell phone tapped and thus had their "rights" violated?
Yet, when Hillary hires a bouncer to bring 1,000 confidential FBI files on GOP'er's over the White House study, that is somehow not a serious violation of people's civil rights and privacy?
This is nuts....and I think is going to backfire on the MSM and Dem's if they keep pursuing this line of thought.
No kidding.
The NYT has gotten as hostile to basic good, as the ACLU.
Only one of them, relies on advertising.
You may have something there.
Now these same DEMOCRATS don't want the AMERICAN PEOPLE to see the report proving the CLINTONS NOT ONLY SPIED ON AMERICAN CITIZENS BUT HAD THEM AUDITED!!! WHY NOT?!!!
HELLO, NYT, where is your 'reporting' on this?!
The left is still screaming about the "leak" of the name of some office slut who happened to be milking the taxpayers at her CIA "job", but they say nothing about the daily leaks of actual operational secrets. They are traitors. They are working for the enemy.
Who is the NYT largest advertiser?
Who are the top 5?
Top 50? Is this public information, and legal to "leak"?
Believe it or not, I think this is good for our side.
Up to now, the MSM have been portraying this as a story about warrantless searches of US citizens. Now the public will get to see who these searches really targetted.

FWIW, I do not believe it is the wire taps in and of themselves that are causing the Dems and the MSM heartburn. It is programs like Able Danger that can take this data and sift through the degrees of separation that isolate the bad guys from MSM types, Democrats or their supporters. The translation of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Defense Ministry document most certainly has identified more US and European contacts that can be matrixed into existing open source programs. More Democrat/MSM heartburn.
Couple this with the OFF revelations and you have the makings of a Democrat scandal of epic proportions.
Great point but our side understands already who is being targeted it's the left and their unreachable hatred cluttering anything logical.
"wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda."
===
Let's protect the rights of the terrorists and the h&^#$ with the lives of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of innocent American citizens. The people in official positions who leaked the information to the press AND the NYT who published it should all be tried for treason.
NYT's advertisers
Brooks Brothers
E-Trade Financial
Vonage Phone Co.
Dell
Radio Shack
Citibank
Neiman Marcus
just to start
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.