Judge quits FISA Court
Dec. 21st, 2005 02:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoIt's funny -- ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
akirlu and I were talking about this last night. How, in America, officials hardly ever quit over principle. Because if they did, you'd think one of the FISA judges would quit, since the administration's NSA orders make them superfluous.
Well, one of the FISA judges appears to agree (without saying so). Here's the beginning of the piece:
"WASHINGTON — A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.
U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.
Two associates familiar with his decision said Tuesday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable.
Robertson, who was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by President Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, declined to comment late Tuesday.
Word of Robertson's resignation came as two Senate Republicans joined the call for congressional investigations into the National Security Agency's interception, without a court warrant, of telephone calls and e-mails to overseas locations by U.S. citizens suspected of links to terrorist groups. They questioned the legality of the operation and the extent to which the White House kept Congress informed."
akirlu and I were talking about this last night. How, in America, officials hardly ever quit over principle. Because if they did, you'd think one of the FISA judges would quit, since the administration's NSA orders make them superfluous.Well, one of the FISA judges appears to agree (without saying so). Here's the beginning of the piece:
"WASHINGTON — A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.
U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, sent a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.
Two associates familiar with his decision said Tuesday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable.
Robertson, who was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by President Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, declined to comment late Tuesday.
Word of Robertson's resignation came as two Senate Republicans joined the call for congressional investigations into the National Security Agency's interception, without a court warrant, of telephone calls and e-mails to overseas locations by U.S. citizens suspected of links to terrorist groups. They questioned the legality of the operation and the extent to which the White House kept Congress informed."
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Date: 2005-12-22 01:23 am (UTC)Which I'd not thought of before that.
TK