Free Republic

August 27, 2006 -- If there were any doubt that a federal judge's decision earlier this month declaring the Bush administration's warrantless-surveillance program unconstitutional was blatantly political, consider this: Judicial Watch reports that the judge, Anna Diggs Taylor, is an officer and trustee of a group that funds the American Civil Liberties Union's Michigan branch - which was a plaintiff in the case. Indeed, the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan's board of trustees, which includes Judge Taylor, makes all funding decisions for the group - and has given the local ACLU at least $125,000 since 1999. Legal-ethics experts disagree on...

Last week US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, in Detroit, Michigan, ruled that the National Security Agency’s overseas communications intercept program was unconstitutional. This is tied for the worst decision I’ve ever read, in 36 years as a member of the bar, both federal and state. Dozens of pundits have already written about aspects of her decision that are egregiously wrong. Even the august New York Times, which opposes the NSA program and favors Judge Taylor’s result, still has called her opinion “badly reasoned.” It’s important that lawyers, legal writers, and experienced laymen be able to recognize a thoroughly incompetent...

You've heard a lot about the ACLU lawsuit since its filing yesterday. But you haven't heard much about its less famous plaintiffs, plaintiffs with whom I'm all too familiar and about whom I've written a great deal. The details on these individuals makes the National Security Agency's monitoring of phone calls not just warranted, but a necessity. I'm referring to ACLU lawyers Noel Saleh, Mohammed Abdrabboh, and Nabih Ayad, the ACLU Plaintiffs named in the yesterday's Complaint, attorney William Swor, a member National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and Nazih Hassan--all named in the lawsuit. They are exactly the kind...

Even legal experts who agreed with a federal judge’s conclusion on Thursday that a National Security Agency surveillance program is unlawful were distancing themselves from the decision’s reasoning and rhetoric yesterday. They said the opinion overlooked important precedents, failed to engage the government’s major arguments, used circular reasoning, substituted passion for analysis and did not even offer the best reasons for its own conclusions. Discomfort with the quality of the decision is almost universal, said Howard J. Bashman, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose Web log provides comprehensive and nonpartisan reports on legal developments. “It does appear,” Mr. Bashman said, “that folks...

by Mark Finkelstein August 18, 2006 - 07:42 If not quite from the grave, the decision by one of Jimmy Carter's judicial appointees, striking down the NSA terrorist surveillance program, was an unwelcome blast from past. Call it Carter's Revenge. Malaise Redux. The spirit of Desert One lives. That this was a political decision more than a legal one is evidenced by the intemperate language of the decision itself: "“There are no hereditary kings in America," harumphed Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the United States District Court in Detroit, in a case filed by the ACLU. Naturally, the NY Times...