The Washington Post has another article on Bush’s warrantless wiretaps of U.S. citizens. This one is about the resignation of FISA court judge, James Robertson. He has apparently resigned in protest of George Bush’s secret “authorization” of warrantless wiretap searches of American citizens. (I put “authorizes” in scare quotes because I contend that Bush has no such authority to convey.)
FISA is the “secret” court where the executive branch was supposed to go to obtain warrants for wiretaps that were sensitive national security issues. In an emergency, FISA could also retroactively approve wiretaps if the executive branch applied for such approval within 72 hours. I’m extremely uneasy with even the FISA court. But at least it’s something.
The article mentions that Robertson ruled against Bush and was regarded as “liberal.” But, I don’t know how liberal you can be when you’ve been selected by Justice Rehnquist to serve on the spy court. Apparently there is some concern that Bush has been using the FISA process to launder information obtained through the warrantless wiretaps.
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