Who Is The NSA Wiretap Leaker?

I’m sure you’ve heard by now about the FISA judge resigning his seat in supposed protest of the wiretaps:

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush’s secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court’s work.

Robertson, who was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, declined to comment when reached at his office late yesterday.

[…]Robertson is considered a liberal judge who has often ruled against the Bush administration’s assertions of broad powers in the terrorism fight, most notably in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld . Robertson held in that case that the Pentagon’s military commissions for prosecuting terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were illegal and stacked against the detainees.

Always good news to hear that a ultra liberal piece of dung is gone from any court, but this is even better. Now his excuse:

[…]Robertson indicated privately to colleagues in recent conversations that he was concerned that information gained from warrantless NSA surveillance could have then been used to obtain FISA warrants. FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring.

“They just don’t know if the product of wiretaps were used for FISA warrants — to kind of cleanse the information,” said one source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the FISA warrants. “What I’ve heard some of the judges say is they feel they’ve participated in a Potemkin court.”

Which makes little sense. The NSA info was used only when time was of the essence. Once more information is gathered from the NSA taps why is it wrong to use that information to get longer term taps?

But the timing of this whole thing is suspect, as AJStrata notices:

I now suspect Judge Robertson resigned for leaking information to the press regarding the NSA process – which he would know all too well if FISA was reviewing the NSA surveillance in a post action, verification role.

Actually the timing of the leak, the Rockefeller letter, and now this resignation is suspect. The leak and story was obviously released to jettison the Patriot Act and to counter any good news from Iraq. The letter was released because his name was used in the original article by the NYT, and now this judge resigning. Is Judge Robertson the leak?

In other news Drudge is reporting:

FLASHBACK: CLINTON, CARTER SEARCH ‘N SURVEILLANCE WITHOUT COURT ORDER

Bill Clinton Signed Executive Order that allowed Attorney General to do searches without court approval

Clinton, February 9, 1995: “The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order”

WASH POST, July 15, 1994, “Administration Backing No-Warrant Spy Searches”: Extend not only to searches of the homes of U.S. citizens but also — in the delicate words of a Justice Department official — to “places where you wouldn’t find or would be unlikely to find information involving a U.S. citizen… would allow the government to use classified electronic surveillance techniques, such as infrared sensors to observe people inside their homes, without a court order.”

Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, the Clinton administration believes the president “has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes.”

Secret searches and wiretaps of Aldrich Ames’s office and home in June and October 1993, both without a federal warrant.

Government officials decided in the Ames case that no warrant was required because the searches were conducted for “foreign intelligence purposes.”

Government lawyers have used this principle to justify other secret searches by U.S. authorities.

“The number of such secret searches conducted each year is classified…”

Jimmy Carter Signed Executive Order on May 23, 1979: “Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without a court order.”

MacRanger gives some more details:

I was a law enforcement officer in the 90s, and I will tell you that it is unequivicolly wrong that this order precluded searches on American Citizens. IN fact, in actual practice it when way beyond it’s original scope as this article produced in 1997 from the CATO Institute details, citing what would appear to be massive and questionable applications of Clinton’s order, to the point of Deriliction of Duty.

[…]Do read the rest of the CATO article as much of what it covers makes the so-called “Scandal” of the present Adminstration pale in comparison. In fact to the contrary, President Bush is showned to have gon of his way to insure both the Country and the privacy of it’s citizens were protected in the difficult process of defending this country against further attack. Nothing in the CATO article remotely comes to that kind of motivation.

I’m sure your amazed that the left isn’t bringing Clinton’s nor Carter’s “illegal” wiretaps up huh? Don’t be, this is just more par for the course. No one was screaming for hearings when these past wiretaps were announced but now suddenly they want the hearings. Pure and utter bullshit.

Other’s Blogging:

A Knight’s Blog
Superfun Powerhour
Pros & Cons
Say Anything
In From The Cold
Michelle Malkin
Peenie Wallie

Actually the timing of the leak, the Rockefeller letter, and now this resignation is suspect. The leak and story was obviously released to jettison the Patriot Act and to counter any good news from Iraq. The letter was released because his name was used in the original article by the NYT, and now this judge resigning. Is Judge Robertson the leak?

Curt

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