Score one for the United States in our effort to defend ourselves. One of our tools to combat the enemy is still intact, despite efforts by the ACLU to destroy it.
A U.S. appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the ACLU against the NSA’s Homeland Security wiretapping program. This is the program that monitors conversations between individuals in the United States and people in foreign countries with ties to al-Qaida. Yeah, exactly the sort of thing that helps keep this nation safe, and exactly the sort of thing the ACLU can’t stand.
Court Dismisses Lawsuit Against U.S. Wiretapping
A U.S. appeals court has ordered that a lawsuit against the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) for a wiretapping program be dismissed because the plaintiffs haven’t been hurt by the agency’s actions.
A divided three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled Friday that the lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a group of journalists, lawyers and academics, be sent back to a district court judge to be dismissed. In August 2006, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled the NSA program, which monitored telephone and Internet communications without court-ordered warrants, was illegal.
The appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs didn’t prove they’d been affected by the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, authorized by U.S. President George Bush in 2002. The program allowed the NSA to monitor communications between U.S. residents and people in other countries with suspected ties to terrorist group al Qaeda…
The U.S. Department of Justice, which appealed the lower court ruling on behalf of the NSA, said it was pleased with the decision. The NSA program was “a vital intelligence program that helped detect and prevent terrorist attacks,” Brian Roehrkasse, the DOJ’s acting director of public affairs, said in a statement.
It’s not over yet, though. The ACLU can still appeal to the US Supreme Court. Of the many disappointments we’ve endured from President Bush, at least we now have a 5-4 reasonable majority on the court. Of course, that’s only because of the outrage surrounding the Harriet Miers choice, but we got it done.
My Dad is a member of and contributes to the ACLJ; a great organization that defeats the ACLU and it’s cynical deeds. I tell him of the Tammy tales…
A great org. to join if people want to make a difference.
I have some hope left in the Supreme Court, considering some of the close encounters.
The ACLU needs to be stunted to mass proportions and do smaller cases…perhaps involving… pets.
I don’t think the game of judicial roulette is what the founders envisioned for the country. Judges like Anna Diggs Taylor are a menace to the Constitution, not guardians of the law.
“Secretary and Trustee for a foundation that donated funds to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan”.
“A liberal judge closely associated (married) to a scandal-plagued Democratic Representative and America’s most liberal and worst president, Jimmy Carter.”
Just plain lousy judge.
Did America achieve it’s greatness so rapidly because we started out from scratch in 1776, an ocean away from entrenched aristocracy? Did we get a breather for a couple of centuries from the inevitable corrupting influence of power? Shouldn’t a democracy do better at avoiding the corruption of a politically incestuous elite?
Keep in mind, however, that 1) this was narrowly decided on the issue of standing, not the constitutional merits of the program and 2) before appealing to the US Supreme Court, they can appeal to the whole Sixth Circuit to hear the case en banc. The Sixth is a very closely divided circuit and if it grants an en banc rehearing could definitely go either way.
The ACLU when further scrutinized is a radical marxist organization. Read their mission statement that says it all.
“…dismissed because the plaintiffs haven’t been hurt by the agency’s actions.”
That doesn’t really seem to be high on the ACLU’s care-about list. I remember seeing an ACLU representative trying to defend the organization on Bill O’Reilly. Issue was a lawsuit against ROTC on a high school campus due to their “aggressive recruitment practices”. It turned out that NOBODY AT THE HIGH SCHOOL (nor their parents) had made any complaint. The representative was utterly unable to explain exactly what the red-flag event was that prompted the suit.
Hard to interpret it as anything other than an anti-military bias.