Posted on 12/23/2005 8:38:50 AM PST by smoothsailing
Judge who resigned over NSA program a partisan Clintonista
Jim Kouri
December 23, 2005
A US federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest at President George W. Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to a Washington Post story.
US District Judge James Robertson, a member of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts late last Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation, the report said.
Two other judges were quoted as saying Robertson privately expressed "deep concern" that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may "have tainted the court's work."
Robertson was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by the then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to serve on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. While defenders of Robertson say that indeed Clinton appointed him and he is considered a liberal-left judge, it was Rehnquist he appointed him to to the FISA court.
However, according to Rehnquist's own record of making appointments, unlike liberals who take ideology into account, Rehnquist was only concerned with credentials and qualifications.
News reports of Robertson's resignation came as two Senate Republicans joined the calls of a number of Democrats for congressional investigations into the National Security Agency's warrantless interception of telephone calls and e-mails to overseas locations by US citizens suspected of links to terrorist groups.
Also, Robertson's protest resignation rings hallow when one considers that he never resigned or voiced his displeasure when President Clinton's NSA conducted warrentless surveillance of American citizens.
Apparently, the good judge is selective in what outrages him.
A security expert questions the Republicans who joined the Democrats in their call for an investigation.
"All of a sudden Republicans trust judges to conduct the terrorism war? All of a sudden judges are the end all when it comes to national security?" says Sid Francis, a former first-grade detective with the NYPD who now runs a security and investigations firm in New York.
"I would have preferred [that] they become as aggressive in trying to investigate who leaked the top secret information to the [New York] Times," he said.
The senators questioned the legality of the operation and the extent to which the White House kept Congress informed, the report said. Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has promised hearings next year.
The revelation of the spy program last week by the New York Times also spurred considerable debate among federal judges, including some who serve on the secret FISA court. For more than a quarter-century, the FISA court had been seen as the only body that could legally authorize secret surveillance of espionage and terrorism suspects. But there are many legal scholars who believe the Bush Administration acted properly and that unlike the Clinton NSA spy program, code named "Echelon," the spying had limited focus on terrorism and was part of a war strategy.
According to reports, Echelon was a far-reaching, random program for gathering information on US citizens.
"No one complained about the [NSA] spying during that administration. Now suddenly these Senators and a federal judge are shocked," said Francis.
Judge Robertson was appointed United States District Judge in December 1994. From 1969 to 1972, Judge Robertson served with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, as chief counsel of the Committee's litigation offices in Jackson, Mississippi, and as director in Washington, D.C. The group is considered an ultra-liberal organization by the Beltway establishment. Judge Robertson then returned to private practice with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where he practiced until his appointment to the federal bench by President Clinton. While in private practice, he served as president of the District of Columbia Bar, co-chair of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and president of Southern Africa Legal Services and Legal Education Project, Inc.
As is the custom of the Republican Party in confirming nominees to federal courts or making judicial appointments, Chief Justice Rehnquist only looked at Robertson's qualifications and legal credentials in appointing him to the super-secret FISA court. As with Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Ginsburg, a former ACLU attorney, ideology never entered into her confirmation. Ginsburg was confirmed by a majority of Republicans in spite of her left-wing ideology and opinions. They based their votes on credentials and qualifications.
"Only the Democrats make confirmations and appointments of people by Republican President a question of ideology," said Mike Baker, a GOP strategist. "The news media try to portray [Robertson] as non-partisan. He's as liberal as they come and as partisan as they come."
Not satisfied with just criticizing the Bush Administration regarding NSA operations, now Robertson is telling the news media about his position on detainees. And since his are criticisms of President Bush, a man the media obviously disdain, Judge Robertson is suddenly a media star-of-the-week until someone else comes out and slams the Bush Administration for another trumped-up scandal.
"Don't be surprised if Democrats win the White House one of their nominations to the Supreme Court is Judge James Robertson. Don't be surprised, " said Sid Francis.
Same judge???
Who'd have thought a Clinton appointee upset over anything GWB might have done....
**"Don't be surprised if Democrats win the White House one of their nominations to the Supreme Court is Judge James Robertson. Don't be surprised, " said Sid Francis.**
If that is the case, Robertson should shut up and stop acting the partisan fool. In any case, all he says and does right now in the name of harming Bush politically in the name of the law will come back to haunt him.
So the new Chief Justice will be selecting the new appointee to that court???
Janice Rogers Brown? That'll teach the lefties!
This is clearly a win. The more Clintonistas who resign, the better off America will be.
Unless there is another reason for his resignation?
Filibusters work both ways!
That would be sweet.
It is unseemly and an illustration of just how irrationally partisan these posts are to now engage in the castigating of this judge. I wish the courts were populated with judges like him rather than the few ideologues that slip through the process.
Not at all, I salute the other 91% of the FISA judges that support the law. Judges that throw snits and resign over being overruled 10-1 should indeed seek another line of work.
I understand your frustration with politics. However, the good judge did not say anything when Clinton was doing the same thing. The judge came out with his complaints at a convient, political moment and you did not hear a peep before. It looks totally political to me. Is he a judge or is he a politician?
You and I hold a totally different view of American law and judges in polticial activism on the court. Things have changed with the Left's "living constitution." That means the constitution means whatever a liberal judges says it means. As for conservative judges, so far it appears we are trying to appoint "strict constitutionalists." We will see about that once the Supreme Court shifts from Liberal, "living constitution" control.
Rush Limbaugh was speculating that this judge may very well be the leaker to Senator Rockefeller, who in turn may have then leaked it to the New York Times. Maybe he didn't resign without some severe pressure with extreme prejudice!!!
http://cache.boston.com/resize/bonzai-fba/AP_Photo/2005/12/21/1135210711_8329/410w.jpg
Judge Says Detainees' Trials Are Unlawful
Ruling Is Setback For Bush Policy
By Carol D. Leonnig and John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 9, 2004; Page A01
The special trials established to determine the guilt or innocence of prisoners at the U.S. military prison in Cuba are unlawful and cannot continue in their current form, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
In a setback for the Bush administration, U.S. District Judge James Robertson found that detainees at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions and therefore entitled to the protections of international and military law -- which the government has declined to grant them.
http://tinyurl.com/43gnc
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Nov. 8, 2004: U.S. District Judge James Robertson orders the Pentagon to halt the war crimes trial of alleged a Yemeni who worked as Osama bin Laden's driver, saying the Military Commissions are flawed and likewise calls the Pentagon's CSRTs an inadequate, non-judicial alternative to habeas proceedings in federal courts.
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Clinton Appointees Meet Privately
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
7/5/99
The eight federal judges appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. District Court in Washington meet privately every month in closed-door sessions that other jurists believe are improper and call into question the court's impartiality. "I cannot imagine any legitimate reason for them to meet together once a month, even socially," said one veteran courthouse official familiar with the sessions. "It's not only in bad taste, it certainly has the appearance of impropriety. It's hard to imagine any rationale for these meetings.
Another court official said they "reek with impropriety." Concern among courthouse officials about the meetings, which are described in e-mail addressed monthly to each of the eight judges, comes at a time that Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson is being publicly criticized for selectively assigning criminal cases against friends and associates of Mr. Clinton's to judges the president has appointed. None of the eight Clinton-appointed judges, all of whom were named to the bench between 1994 to 1998, would comment on the meetings or their content.
"I have no comment to make on these matters," said U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., the only one of the eight who personally answered a telephone call. A spokeswoman for Judge Richard W. Roberts returned a call but said only that the judge "declined comment."
http://tinyurl.com/bvdgm
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Webster Hubbell Indictment Dismissed
A federal judge dismissed an indictment against former associate attorney general and long-time Clinton friend Webster Hubbell. U.S. District Judge James Robertson threw out the charges on July 1, 1998, ruling that Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr had overstepped his authority in bringing forth the Hubbell indictment. Robertson also charged that Starr had violated Hubbell's Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination by building a case that relied on materials collected under an immunity agreement with Hubbell.
http://tinyurl.com/8ol26
Full text of Judge Robertson's order dismissing charges against Hubbell and 3 others
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
v.
WEBSTER L. HUBBELL, et al.,
Defendants.
Crim. Action No. 98- 0151 (JR)
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Order Monica's Story
Before this Court are four motions challenging the indictment in this tax evasion case.
One of the motions seeks dismissal of the entire case and will be granted: The charges in the indictment neither relate to nor arise out of the subject of the original grant of jurisdiction to the independent counsel, and the referral order under which the independent counsel is proceeding impermissibly expands that jurisdiction.
A second motion, dispositive only as to defendant Webster L. Hubbell, will also be granted: The independent counsel concedes that he built his case against Mr. Hubbell using 13,120 pages of records that Mr. Hubbell was compelled to produce under subpoena. That use violates the immunity given to Mr. Hubbell by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Defendants' third and fourth motions are to dismiss the mail and wire fraud charges and to dismiss a single charge of violation of the "omnibus" provision of the criminal tax code. Those motions will be denied.
http://tinyurl.com/cnngj
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Aug. 02, 2000 PT
The FBI must respond to privacy activists' request for information about the Carnivore email surveillance system.
In a hearing late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Robertson ordered the FBI to promptly respond to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Electronic Privacy Information Center last month.
The ruling gives the FBI ten working days to tell EPIC when it can see Carnivore records under an "expedited" Freedom of Information Act procedure.
The judge scheduled an emergency same-day hearing after the suit was filed.
Carnivore was recently revealed to be a method used by the FBI to tap electronic mail communications during criminal investigations. The FBI has been reluctant to reveal Carnivore details, partly on the grounds that such exposure would let programmers create their own, malicious Carnivore clones.
In an application for a temporary restraining order (available as a file download at EPIC's website), EPIC charged that the Department of Justice and the FBI failed to expedite the FOIA request it submitted to the agencies last month.
The judge's order was a moot point by the time it came -- the FBI and Justice Department made a last-minute concession to grant EPIC's request. At the opening of the hearing, EPIC's general counsel David Sobel told the judge he had just received the affirmative answer in a fax from the FBI and Justice Department.
"I am basically very pleased with the outcome," said Sobel. "It in effect means that the federal court is now supervising the FBI's handling of this material and its compliance with our FOIA request."
The FBI has argued that Carnivore is a "well-focused" system that has been used in only a small number of cases.
The EPIC action, submitted to U.S. District Judge James Robertson, follows recent FOIA requests on Carnivore by both EPIC and the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU also sent a letter to Congress last month, urging lawmakers to amend outdated electronic privacy laws.
The ACLU proposed incorporating law enforcement tools like Carnivore into any revision, since the ability to intercept and analyze email on a wide scale poses a threat to personal privacy.
The FBI maintains that while Carnivore is designed to specifically target individual email transmissions, the agency does not read the unrelated email that is caught in Carnivore's electronic net.
Carnivore monitors email traffic through Internet service providers and intercepts the electronic mail of criminal suspects. By catching unrelated email before it processes the information, EPIC and other privacy advocates worry about the civil liberty implications for customers of ISPs where Carnivore has been installed.
Attorney General Janet Reno said late last month that Carnivore would be reviewed by a group of experts. But EPIC wanted a full public review of the system, seeking all Carnivore records from the FBI, including the underlying source code and information about any limitations restricting the agency's use of the system.
http://tinyurl.com/9pcd2
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Judge nears decision on fate of 15 Guantanamo detainees
Military tribunal ordered release of Chinese Muslims
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | December 13, 2005
WASHINGTON -- A federal judge yesterday said he will decide in the next two weeks whether to issue an order that could bring two cleared-but-stranded Guantanamo detainees to his courtroom in the nation's capital as a first step toward possibly releasing them into the United States.
US District Court Judge James Robertson said that the Bush administration had run out of time to find some other country willing to take in 15 Chinese Muslims, known as Uighurs, who were arrested during the Afghanistan war.
http://tinyurl.com/cnxus
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Last month, a federal judge in Washington derailed the war-crimes trial process when he ruled that US officials had failed to comply with the requirements of the Geneva Conventions and were violating safeguards enacted by Congress.
The ruling by US District Judge James Robertson came in the case of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a driver for Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Since June 2002, Mr. Hamdan has been held and interrogated at Guantánamo. In July he was charged with conspiring to commit terrorism by being a member of Al Qaeda and was among the first four alleged Al Qaeda captives facing trial before the military commission. Hamdan denies any involvement in terrorism.
His lawyers challenged the legality of the commission process in papers filed not only with the commission in Guantánamo but also with Judge Robertson.
Robertson ruled that the Defense Department was violating the terms of the Geneva Conventions because it had failed to conduct a tribunal to determine whether Hamdan was entitled to prisoner-of-war status. Absent such a tribunal, the US government - as a signatory of the Geneva Conventions for treatment of war captives - is obligated to treat Hamdan as if he were a prisoner of war, the judge says. And if he is a prisoner of war, Robertson adds, he must be afforded the same high level of due process protections as would be afforded a US soldier in a court-martial.
http://tinyurl.com/8cptj
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Jul. 16, 2005
Ruling lets U.S. restart trials at Guantanamo
By Carol Rosenberg
Knight Ridder Newspapers
MIAMI -- A federal appeals court handed the Bush administration a key victory Friday in its war-against-terror strategy, ruling that the Pentagon could put Osama bin Laden's Yemeni driver on trial for war crimes at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously upheld President Bush's war powers to create a Military Commission to try Salim Ahmed Hamdan, 35, of Yemen.
Moreover, Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote in a 22-page decision that, as chief executive and commander in chief, Bush could deny terrorism captives prisoner-of-war status as outlined by the Geneva Conventions.
The decision was the latest chapter in the three-year-old legal struggle over presidential powers to detain and sometimes put on trial so-called enemy combatants in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
snip
Friday's decision overruled U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson, a Navy veteran who was appointed by President Clinton. He ridiculed Bush's war court as providing fewer protections than the Pentagon's own Uniform Code of Military Justice and ruled that the president cannot unilaterally create commissions or confer a blanket category of enemy combatants on captives.
The appeals court replied that, even if Congress has not formally declared war, it has granted the president power to craft a military commission.
http://tinyurl.com/bnt8m
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Judge Robertson was appointed United States District Judge in December 1994 [by William Jefferson Clinton]. He graduated from Princeton University in 1959 and received an LL.B. from George Washington University Law School in 1965 after serving in the U.S. Navy. From 1965 to 1969, he was in private practice with the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering [Lloyd Cutler was, for a while, White House counsel to President Clinton]. From 1969 to 1972, Judge Robertson served with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, as chief counsel of the Committee’s litigation offices in Jackson, Mississippi, and as director in Washington, D.C. Judge Robertson then returned to private practice with Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where he practiced until his appointment to the federal bench. While in private practice, he served as president of the District of Columbia Bar, co-chair of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and president of Southern Africa Legal Services and Legal Education Project, Inc.
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