Legal Commentary

Kinda Has a 'Smoking Gun' Feel To It

By Professor University of Miami School of Law

This is fairly amazing: Justice Dept. snubs federal judge’s ruling.

In a parting shot, the Bush administration’s Justice Department shrugged off a San Francisco federal judge’s order to make a classified document available to lawyers for an Islamic group challenging the legality of the outgoing president’s secret wiretapping program.

National security officials, not judges, must decide whether private citizens - even those with security clearances - are entitled to see classified material, Justice Department lawyers said in a filing Monday night.

…

At the heart of the case is a document that purportedly showed the government monitored Al-Haramain’s overseas calls in 2004 before classifying it as a terrorist group. The National Security Agency accidentally sent a copy to Al-Haramain in 2005, but the Islamic group, a charity that has since ceased operations, returned the document at the agency’s request and is barred from revealing its contents.

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled Jan. 5 that Al-Haramain could proceed with its case, saying government statements showed that the group had probably been wiretapped.

…

Government lawyers asked Walker’s permission to appeal his ruling to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco - an appeal they had already filed without his permission Friday - and did not say explicitly that they would withhold the classified document regardless of his orders.

One to watch to see if the new administration takes a different view. The next hearing is tomorrow.

Full post as published by Discourse.net on January 22, 2009 (boomark / email).