Judge Asks Whitehouse for Permission to Release Info to ACLU
What ever happened to separation of powers? The Washington Post reports: "A secret U.S. intelligence court has ordered the Bush administration to register its views about a records request by the American Civil Liberties Union, which wants the court to release a series of pivotal orders issued earlier this year about the National Security Agency's wiretapping program."
This is not ordinary process. The Wapo article suggests it may not be possible for the court to release info if the Whitehouse opposes the release.
The Wapo article says,
The ACLU has asked the court for copies of orders it issued in January related to the NSA's warrantless surveillance program, which had been operated without court oversight since late 2001 and which has been the focus of fierce congressional debate.
The group is also seeking a copy of one or more court orders issued in the spring that, according to administration officials and congressional Republicans, concluded that parts of the program are illegal. The orders helped provoke Congress to overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act this month, giving U.S. spy agencies expanded powers to eavesdrop on foreign suspects without a court order.
Associated Press reported,
The ACLU last week asked the court to explain publicly the need to revamp laws that expand the government's authority to spy on foreigners. The request was prompted by Congress's approval earlier this month of legislation updating the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to allow the government to eavesdrop on terror suspects who are believed to be foreigners without first getting a court warrant.
The ACLU is optimistic.
A Reagan era Justice Department official is skeptical, telling the Wapo, "I would be amazed if that request were granted in the end."
The judge, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, is a 1997 Clinton era appointee. That makes the odds a little bit better.
Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
Check out his platform at RobKall.com
He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
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Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
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more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, (more...)
