Posted on 03/24/2006 5:49:24 PM PST by Cboldt
[JURIST] US Chief Justice John Roberts has appointed US District Judge and former Whitewater prosecutor John D. Bates [official profile] to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) [FJC backgrounder] to replace US District Judge James Robertson [official profile], who resigned [JURIST report] last December, purportedly in protest over the controversial warrantless domestic eavesdropping program [JURIST news archive] promulgated by the Bush administration. Roberts secretly chose Bates to replace Robertson in February, but news of the appointment only came Friday after the Federation of American Scientists [advocacy website] reported in its Secrecy News [report] newsletter that Bates' appointment had appeared in his own official online biography.
The FISC reviews applications for domestic intelligence surveillance and search warrant requests under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [text; FAS materials]. AP has more.
Good. A liberal political appointee of Billyjeff's loudly resigned , hoping to cause a scandal for Bush. Instead, he only succeeded in getting a solid conservative on the FISA court. It should help.
Hear hear! Good to see the team win such a sensitive post!
He apparently was the one who made it public that they refused to acknowledge the Patriot Act.
It was over two years after the Court of Review smacked them down over that, when he had his fit and resigned. He knew then that the President's program was not "illegal".
I bet he resigned when he found out the Justice Department was investigating leaks.
More on Robertson from Alamo-Girl's list. http://www.alamo-girl.com/03151.htm
He was one of the judges to whom Judge Norma Holloway Johnson preferentially assigned Clinton campaign finance criminal cases, including that of Webster Hubbell and a contributor to Mike Espy.
He did Western Civilization a huge favor when he got off the FISA court.
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