Judge Orders DOJ To Turn Over FISA Surveillance Documents

itwbennett (1594911) writes "In a victory for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which is suing to make the DOJ release information about surveillance on U.S. citizens, a California judge on Friday ordered the Department of Justice to produce 66 pages of documents for her review. The judge said the agency failed to justify keeping the documents secret and she will decide whether the documents, including one opinion and four orders by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), were improperly withheld from the public."

Re:So?

[Shakrai]

The executive branch has thought itself above the constitution since 1789

Fixed it for you.

(If you want to cut Washington a break you could say 1801. Jefferson thought the Louisiana purchase unconstitutional but did it anyway, perhaps the first "the ends justify the means" rationalization used by an American President. Then of course we have 1861 and Abe's questionable activities during the American Civil War)

Re:Hooray.

[sumdumass]

Then she returns then and doesn't disclose their contents.

Of course she can use her new found knowlege to make decisions pertaining to the case that will seem arbitrary to the rest of us. But i think the chances of that here are slim.

Re:So?

[TWX]

Actually I'd chock one up to Andrew Jackson, who marched tens of thousands of indigenous people from their tribal areas in the southern US to what's now Oklahoma, directly against court-order, in what's now known as the Trail of Tears.

Fact of the matter is, unless two branches gang-up on the third, it's not really, truly going to be illegal. Right now there aren't enough people in the legislative branch and the judicial branch to truly oppose the executive branch, especially in the post-2001 era when the executive branch was given latitude by both others.