Ethics

Republican Judge Clears Way for Wiretapping Case

By Ed Brayton

This could be a huge development for the rule of law. A federal judge has ruled against the Bush administration's attempts to have a case challenging possible warrantless wiretapping dismissed. This may be an important case that could put a nail in the coffin of the state secrets privilege as a means of avoiding all judicial scrutiny of the NSA's wiretapping program.

A federal judge on Monday cleared the way for a groundbreaking suit that would let lawyers peek behind the curtain of the Bush administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program.

Northern District of California Chief Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that lawyers for Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation can access material long held secret by the government. But he also wrote that the press and the public must now be kept largely in the dark.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on January 07, 2009 (boomark / email).