FEDERAL JUDGE OPENS DOOR TO MORE TERRORIST ATTACKS

A federal district judge for Eastern Michigan has struck down the Terrorist Surveillance Program by which the U.S. government monitors phone conversations between persons in this country and overseas terrorists. Anna Driggs Taylor, appointed to the bench by Jimmy Carter, ruled that the program violates the provisions of the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution, the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act, Title III, and the Separation of Powers Doctrine.

A chorus of legal scholars, however, say that the ruling is fraught with error and a gross misinterpretation of the U.S. Constitution. This is the first time in U.S. History that a court has issued a ruling that strikes down a President's authority to order surveillance when Americans are in danger.

Critics of the ruling suspect that the ruling is politically motivated. The Judge even takes an overt swipe at President Bush by stating in her ruling, 'There are no hereditary Kings in America,' an obvious reference to the fact that the 43th President is the son of the 41st President.

Perhaps the good Judge should remember that there are no Queens in America in our judicial branch, either.

This blatant act of judicial activism comes on the heels of several other examples of Judges who believe they write law rather than interpret the law, specifically the edicts issued by several state Supreme Courts that 'instruct' the legislatures to write laws concerning gay marriage.

Since when do the Courts in this country issue commands to the legislative branch? The Courts interpret the law, period. They do not make laws. To 'instruct' a legislature to write a law is tantamount to the Court writing that law itself.

Bobby Chesney, a national security law specialist at Wake Forest University, said, 'Regardless of what your position is on the merits of the issue, there's no question that it's a poorly reasoned decision.'

In addition, Bryan Cunningham, a former federal prosecutor in the Clinton Administration, wrote that Taylor made "breathtaking mistakes" in her application of the First and Fourth Amendments. He said, '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.'

It is no coincident that the plaintiff in the lawsuit that resulted in this regrettable ruling is the ACLU, which represented a group of lawyers, scholars, journalists, and non-profit groups that regularly communicate with people in the Middle East. Their fear was that they would become targets for surveillance.

However, unless these individuals are communicating with known terror suspects, why would there be any fear at all that their phone calls would be monitored?

I suspect that the real reason behind the suit is simply to stop the surveillance program that liberals have long abhorred.

This is quite interesting given the fact that some of these very same groups were quick to applaud the public disclosure of Instant Messages and emails between Mark Foley and the House Page, which supposedly show that Foley had ill intent. If private communication is supposed to be private, then evidently this applies only to persons who talk to terror suspects overseas. The rest of us continue to run the risk of having our private conversations monitored if we as much as mention in passing the word 'S-E-X.'

Of course, duplicity and hypocrisy have long been the hallmarks of the leftwing in this country. Like everything else, surveillance programs are BAD only if they are inconvenient to the liberal intelligentsia.

And thus, Judge Anna Briggs Taylor has opened the door to the possibility of another major terrorist attack on this country. The reprehensible nature of this ruling is magnified by the fact that the only thing that foiled the recent plot to blow up airliners was government monitoring of the conversations of terror suspects. Without this program in place we are in grave danger.

I must also mention that the top Democrats in Congress hailed this ruling and applauded the Judge's 'courage.'

We can only hope that the Federal Appeals Court will strike down this embarrassing decision issued by a judge with a political agenda and an ax to grind.