Ouch!
Ouch! That is just about all anyone can say after Bryan Cunningham of National Review took U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor’s to task for writing her opinion overturning the warrantless wiretapping case. How is Bryan Cunningham qualified to question the judge’s decision you may ask? Cunningham has been in a senior position in the CIA and has served as a federal prosecutor under President Clinton, and as deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. Today he is a privacy lawyer in Denver, Colorado.
Cunningham starts by giving Judge Taylor the benefit of the doubt for giving such a stupid ruling by saying she ‘hears the footsteps’ of the evil Bush administration. But then, he takes her to task for her sloppy legal work.
We can sympathize with her motives, and even share some of her gut feelings of uneasiness about the program. But we cannot accept the stunningly amateurish piece of, I hesitate even to call it legal work, by which she purports to make our government go deaf and dumb to those would murder us en masse. Her bosses on the Court of Appeals and/or the United States Supreme Court will not accept it.
Much will be said about this opinion in the coming days. I’ll start with this: I wouldn’t accept this utterly unsupported, constitutionally and logically bankrupt collection of musings from a first-year law student, much less a new lawyer at my firm. Why not? Herewith, a start at a very long list of what’s wrong with Judge Taylor’s opinion.
Cunningham goes on to show that the Judge did not do her homework, failed to look at any evidence, did not understand the wiretapping law, and did not show with any constitutional reason why the warrantless wiretapping program is illegal.
More worrisome still are the judge’s breathtaking mistakes in analyzing the Fourth and First Amendments—errors that would earn our first-year law student an “F.” Here’s one of several examples: The judge asserts that the Fourth Amendment, in all cases, “requires prior warrants for any reasonable search, based upon prior-existing probable cause.” She cites no legal authority whatsoever for this colossal misstatement of the law, because none exists. Instead, there are numerous situations where our courts have found no prior warrant is required, so long as a search is “reasonable.”
And the hits just keep on coming.
Amateur hour? Judge Taylor, a law professor, has been on the bench since 1979. She is decidedly not an amateur. So, how to explain her first-year failing-grade opinion? Regrettably, the only plausible explanation is that she wanted the result she wanted and was willing to ignore and misread vast portions of constitutional law to get there, gambling the lives and security of her fellow Americans in the bargain. (emphasis by TRS)
As I said earlier, ouch! Many people in America still hold judges in high opinion. Unfortunately, this view does not take into account Jimmy Carter appointees like Taylor who seem to be able to ruin the whole batch. Judges are supposed to uphold the law and the Constitution. When a conflict between the two arises, the Constitution has precedent. In the case of the warrantless wiretapping program, this Judge Taylor obviously did not need any evidence; she had already made up her mind how she was going to rule, thereby breaking one of the major commandments on the bench.
What is really disturbing is that this judge wants to end a powerful tool used to combat terrorism during wartime. President Bush has used this tool effectively to keep America safe for the last five years. And warrantless wiretapping program was instrumental in catching the British airline bombers. Wanting to end such an effective program at keeping America safe defies comprehension….unless you are one of these liberal moonbats who think President Bush is trying to curb all rights.
I can not see any circuit judge letting this ruling stand. And I particularly don’t see the US Supreme Court letting the ruling stand. America is at war, these judges need to make sure they are on our side.
Hat tip: BlackFive
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