Friday - August 18, 2006

Judges On A Plane

First things first ... Judge Taylor was appointed to the federal bench in 1979 by ... Mr. Peanut, Jimmah Carter. Her biography reveals a liberal education in Massachusetts and law school at Yale. According to the Chicago Tribune, “in 1964 she spent a summer in Mississippi as part of the National Lawyers Guild’s civil rights program and was in Philadelphia, Miss., when three civil rights activists turned up missing. She and others faced down an angry crowd outside a sheriff’s office.”

The Tribune goes on to say, “Taylor became active in politics, helping Coleman Young in his 1973 campaign and Jimmy Carter in his 1976 victory. After Young’s election, Taylor was named special counsel to the City of Detroit and then in 1975 accepted the full time position as assistant corporation counsel for the city. She successfully defended new city policies that established affirmative action hiring practices and outlawed discrimination in two private yacht clubs located on city-owned Belle Isle. Taylor, the first African-American woman to serve as a federal judge in Michigan, handled issues such as Eminem’s lawsuit against Apple Computer and MTV over the use of a song, banned Nativity scenes on city property in Birmingham and Dearborn, Mich., and ordered former automaker John DeLorean to pay back millions of dollars.”

Are you starting to get the picture of the judge who just threw a monkey-wrench into national security? It doesn’t matter if Al-Qaeda kills every last American - as long as President Bush is stymied in his efforts to protect the country and forced to fight a war on terror without being able to monitor the enemy’s phone calls and communications ... in effect, making it a losing effort. Democrats and Liberals like Judge Taylor have only one goal - to get rid of the current administration and nothing will turn them aside from that goal ... not even the deaths of countless more Americans.

Judge Rules Against Wiretaps
NSA Program Called Unconstitutional
_{(WASHINGTON POST) - Friday, August 18, 2006}

A federal judge in Detroit ruled yesterday that the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional, delivering the first decision that the Bush administration’s effort to monitor communications without court oversight runs afoul of the Bill of Rights and federal law.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor (pictured at right) ordered a halt to the wiretap program, secretly authorized by President Bush in 2001, but both sides in the lawsuit agreed to delay that action until a Sept. 7 hearing. Legal scholars said Taylor’s decision is likely to receive heavy scrutiny from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit when the Justice Department appeals, and some criticized her ruling as poorly reasoned.

Ruling in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other advocacy groups in the Eastern District of Michigan, Taylor said that the NSA wiretapping program, aimed at communications by potential terrorists, violates privacy and free speech rights and the constitutional separation of powers among the three branches of government. She also found that the wiretaps violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law instituted to provide judicial oversight of clandestine surveillance within the United States.

“It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights,” Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion. “. . . There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all ‘inherent powers’ must derive from that Constitution.”

- More judicial idiocy at the WAPO ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 08/18/2006 at 12:32 PM   
Filed Under: • Homeland-Security • Judges-Courts-Lawyers •  
• Comments (8) • Trackbacks(1)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2008 Domain Owner