Judges on Secretive Panel Speak Out on Spy Program

Judges on Secretive Panel Speak Out on Spy Program

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: March 29, 2006
WASHINGTON, March 28 — Five former judges on the nation's most secretive court, including one who resigned in apparent protest over President Bush's domestic eavesdropping, urged Congress on Tuesday to give the court a formal role in overseeing the surveillance program.

Judge James Robertson quit the intelligence court just days after the spy program was disclosed.
In a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the secretive court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, several former judges who served on the panel also voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president's constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a court order. They also suggested that the program could imperil criminal prosecutions that grew out of the wiretaps.

Judge Harold A. Baker, a sitting federal judge in Illinois who served on the intelligence court until last year, said the president was bound by the law "like everyone else." If a law like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is duly enacted by Congress and considered constitutional, Judge Baker said, "the president ignores it at the president's peril."

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/politics/29nsa.html?hp&ex=1143694800&en=74577a3fe79431bf&ei=5094&partner=homepage

retired cabinet officers have all in the past years come out against what this President is doing. When have we ever seen this before? Not in my lifetime. I am humbled by the fact that so many have risked all to tell the truth about this administration. :patriot: