Two Thoughts on the NSA Ruling

LSB: There are a couple of interesting videos on YouTude.com regarding the ruling by a federal judge in Detroit who declared that the NSA eavesdropping program was illegal and unconstitutional. Click on the names to watch the YouTube.com videos.

Jonathan Turley gives us a good explanation of what today’s ruling means. The main thing to come out today is that Bush does not have this widespread Constitutional authority that he claims to be granted by the War Powers.

Jonathan Turley on MSNBC: "Every time a judge rules against the administration they are either too Democratic or too tall or too short or Pisces. All this spin - this effort to personalize it is doing a great injustice to our system. The problem is not the judge. The problem is a lack of authority. When Gonzales says ‘I got something back in my safe and if you could see it you would all agree with me’. Well, unless there’s a federal statute back in his safe, then it’s not going to make a difference."

Jack Cafferty ripped into the Republican leadership today over the recent ruling that the NSA warrantless program is illegal. For all the wingers that say the NSA helped in the UK terror plot, they should turn to their good pal O’Reilly, who said that they got FISA warrants in that case which proves the point. Right wing blogger Ace asks where is the Congress? That’s a fair question, but it’s a Republican Congress and that’s been the problem.

Jack Cafferty on CNN: You know Wolf, it seems like were having this discussion about this judge’s ruling sort of in the abstract, as if there’s no precedent for what the judge decided. The judge in effect upheld the ruling of the FISA court which says that ‘if you want to wiretap phones you need a warrant to do so’. The court was created by Congress in 1978, I think it was, and the law of the land says, "Get a warrant". The actions of the administration have ignored the law of the land in that regard. So it’s not a discussion in the abstract. It’s not hypothetical. There are laws on the books against what the administration is doing, and it’s about time someone said it out loud.