A federal judge has resigned from a special court in protest over President George W. Bush's secret authorization of a countrywide warrantless domestic spying program, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
The action by US District Judge James Robertson stemmed from deep concern that the surveillance program that Bush authorized was legally questionable and may have tainted the work of the court that Robertson resigned from, the newspaper said. The Post quoted two associates of the judge in a story posted on its Web site.
Robertson was one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act program (FISA), which oversees government applications for secret surveillance or searches of foreigners and US citizens suspected of committimng acts of terrorism or espionage.
Quoting colleagues of Robertson, the Post said the judge had indicated he was concerned that information gained from the warrantless surveillance under Bush's program could have then been used to obtain warrants under the FISA program.
The Post said Robertson, without providing an explanation, stepped down from the FISA court in a letter late on Monday to Chief Justice John Roberts.
Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said early yesterday she had no information to offer on the matter.
Robertson was appointed a federal judge by former president Bill Clinton in 1994. Chief Justice William Rehnquist later appointed Robertson to the FISA court as well.
Robertson has been critical of the Bush administration's treatment of detainees at the US naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, most memorably in a decision that sidetracked the president's system of military tribunals to put some detainees on trial.
In related news, the American Civil Liberties Union claims that government documents it obtained show that the FBI planned to have terrorism investigators spy on a 2003 animal rights event at Indiana University.
The alleged plan to infiltrate a campus speech by an environmental activist was contained in hundreds of pages of heavily censored documents ACLU lawyers obtained from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. An FBI spokeswoman denied the agency took any such action.
One of the documents, which the ACLU posted on its Web site on Tuesday, is from the Indianapolis FBI office and referred to plans to conduct surveillance and collect "general intelligence" during an April 2003 speech by animal-rights advocate Gary Yourofsky at the Indiana Memorial Union.
"It's hard to comprehend how surveillance of animal-rights groups makes us safer from terrorism, but it's easy to see how it threatens our constitutional rights to free speech and privacy," said Fran Quigley, executive director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union.
Wendy Osborne, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Indianapolis office, said the surveillance did not take place.
"I can tell you we did not conduct surveillance in Bloomington at that meeting or any meeting like that," she told the Herald-Times.
"The FBI has to operate under the attorney general's guidelines," she said. "We don't just go around and watch organizations and go to meetings to see who's showing up. We're not allowed to do that, nor do we do that," she added.
also see story:
Fishing for intelligence
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS