Hero or not

posted by The Vidiot @ 3:03 PM Permalink

Today, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor did a good deed in ruling the NSA program is wrong and anti-constitutional. Here's the much ballyhooed money quote:

Excerpt: "We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent power' must derive from that Constitution."

Here's the actual decision. (pdf)

Update: Greenwald does the parsing for us, so we don't have to. Bottom line (literally, it's the bottom line of his blogpost)

Excerpt: From the decision: "The AUMF Resolution, if indeed it is construed as replacing FISA, gives no support to Defendants here. Even if that Resolution superceded all other statutory law, Defendants have violated the constitutional rights of their citizens."

Op. at 39 (emphasis added). If Congress is not empowered to authorize this program through the AUMF (because the program is unconstitutional), then there is no good argument as to why the Specter bill can.