A U.S. judge has ruled that a U.S. National Security
Agency (NSA) program to wiretap telephone and Internet traffic
of U.S. residents is illegal and must be stopped.
Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the U.S. District
Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on Thursday ordered the
NSA and "its agents, employees, representatives and any other
persons or entities in active concert or participation" with the
agency to halt the so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program.
The program allowed the NSA to monitor communications between
U.S. residents and people in other countries with suspected ties to
terrorist group al
Qaeda, without getting court-ordered warrants.
The program, authorized by U.S. President George Bush in 2002,
violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of freedom of speech
and association and its prohibitions against unreasonable searches
and seizures, Taylor wrote in her order.
The NSA program also violates the separation of powers clause in
the Constitution, she wrote, as well as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which
set courts to issue warrants for wiretaps focused on
counterintelligence.
"The public interest is clear, in this matter," Taylor wrote.
"It is the upholding of our Constitution."
Bush has defended the program as a valuable tool used to track
down potential terrorists. The program is "firmly grounded in law"
and only targets international phone calls in which one participant
is suspected to be linked to al Qaeda, Bush spokesman Tony Snow
said in a statement.
"We couldn't disagree more with this ruling," Snow added. "The
whole point is to detect and prevent terrorist attacks before they
can be carried out. That's what the American people expect from
their government, and it is the President's most solemn duty to
ensure their protection."
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said Thursday
it has already appealed Taylor's order. The NSA program is a
"critical tool that ensures we have in place an early warning
system to detect and prevent a terrorist attack," the DOJ said in a
statement.
Taylor's order to shut down the program will be delayed until
after a hearing to determine whether the ruling should be postponed
until the appeal process ends, the DOJ said.
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, cheered Taylor's
ruling, saying he believes the NSA program is illegal.
"This has become another unfortunate example of how White House
misdirection, arrogance and mismanagement have needlessly
complicated our goal of protecting the American people," Leahy said
in a statement. "We can and should wiretap terrorists under the
current ... law. The problem has been the Bush-Cheney
Administration's insistence on doing it illegally, without checks
and balances to prevent abusing the rights of Americans."
The NSA, claiming it could not argue the case without disclosing
state secrets, asked Taylor to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and U.S.
Islamic groups. Taylor rejected the NSA's request.
The ACLU and other plaintiffs argued the NSA's program made it
difficult for U.S. residents such as scholars, lawyers and
journalists to communicate internationally without government
monitoring.
The Michigan case is related to a series of lawsuits against
AT&T Inc. and other telecom carriers being heard in the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of California. In those
cases, individuals and civil-liberties groups have sued the
carriers for allegedly participating in the NSA's wiretapping
program. In July, the California judge denied a U.S. government
motion to dismiss the main case against AT&T.
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