More thoughts on the the Judge's Ruling

posted by The Vidiot @ 11:15 AM Permalink

The decision against the NSA's spying program continues to be on my mind. Mr. Vidiot and I had our usual "discussion" about it. He suggests that the dems and repubs BOTH wanted this decision in order to create the illusion of opposition, further propagating the myth of the two-party system. And I don't entirely disagree with him.

But there was one interesting bit in the Greenwald piece mentioned in my previous post. About an eighth of the way down, in his explanation of the decision, he says the following:

First, the court rejected the administration's assertion of the "state secrets" doctrine with regard to the NSA eavesdropping program on the ground that the program has already been publicly confirmed by the administration, and that all of the known facts necessary to rule on the plaintiffs' claims -- namely, that the administration is eavesdropping without warrants -- are already publicly known. The court adopted the reasoning of Judge Walker who, as noted above, rejected the administration's invocation of this doctrine on the same ground.

(The court here did, however, grant the administration's motion to dismiss the part of the case challenging the constitutionality of the data-mining program, on the ground that it has not yet been confirmed, and litigation of its legality would therefore require disclosure of state secrets).

Now, if you've been reading Wayne Madsen at all, you might be aware of his theory that all of the data theft that's been going, above and below the radar, is all part of the government's covert ops to fill up the TIA database (Total Information Awareness a la John Negroponte). We all know it's going on, but the administration hasn't admitted it. Every time the program gets shot down in Congress, it pops up again as part of another program. Like whack-a-mole. Anyway, that little tidbit from the decision just rubs me the wrong way.

Yes, the TIA program is probably unconstitutional, but that can't be discussed or debated because the Administration won't admit to what we all know they're doing. So it's off limits.

Does that strike anybody else as ridiculous?