Topic category:  Other/General

Predictably, AOL News put a "No Kings in America" headline on the article by AP's Sarah Karush titled "Judge Orders Halt to Warrantless Surveillance."

What nonsense!  What DANGEROUS (DIABOLICAL?) nonsense!

"Warrantless Surveillance" refers to the terrorist surveillance program that has kept America terrorist attack-free since September 11, 2001.  That's a big plus for the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans.  Especially after  the recent foiling of a terrorist plan to blow up over the Atlantic Ocean plans flying from Great Britain to America.  (Technically, that would not have been an attack on the American homeland, but apparently it's the worst that the terrorists have been working toward recently and it would have been a horror for America as a nation as well as fatal for those aboard, devastating for their families and friends, and detrimental to the whole airline industry and businesses dependent upon it.)

The case in which the order was issued is the lawsuit filed by the ACLU last January on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers claiming that warrantless surveillance has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. (As though THAT is good cause to stop monitoring suspected terrorists calling from abroad!)

"Judge" is Anna Diggs Taylor, the widow of the late Michigan Congressman Charles Diggs. (In 1960 she married him and moved to Detroit, where he was re-elected regularly, even after being convicted on 29 criminal counts).

The President who appointed her a federal judge?  Jimmy Carter.  (It HAD to be him or Bill Clinton!)

White House press secretary Tony Snow declared that the Bush administration "couldn't disagree more with this ruling" and explained yet again that the program carefully targets communications of suspected terrorists and "has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives."

The Judge ruled that even in the President and a unanimous Congress concurred, the program had to be halted, because it still would be unconstitutional!

"It is disappointing that a judge would take it upon herself to disarm America during a time of war," Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, commented.

It's worse than that!  It is judicial activism run amok when America is engaged in a War on Terror initiated by an evil enemy whom the Judge aided and abetted.

The AP article discussed the interest that the Judge deemed more important than preventing terrorist attacks: giving lawyers and their overseas clients more comfort that their telephone conversation are completely secure:

"One of the plaintiffs in the case, Detroit immigration lawyer Noel Saleh, said the NSA program had made it difficult to represent his clients, some of whom the government accuses of terrorist connections.  

"Many of those cases require him to speak to witnesses overseas. 'There's no way I or my clients would feel secure' about the privacy of those phone conversations, Saleh said.  

"Saleh, a leader in Michigan's large Arab-American community, said the program affected not only lawyers, scholars and journalists whose professional activities require them to communicate overseas, but anyone with relatives abroad.  

"For example, Saleh said there were 'constant phone calls between the United States and Lebanon' in recent weeks, as people here sought news of their families amid the violence in the Middle East. The NSA was likely listening in on many of those calls, he said.   "'People have the right to be concerned about their family, to check on the welfare of their family and not be spied on by the government,' he said."

The government has the right and duty to prevent terrorist attacks, the right to life of all Americans being the paramount right, and it trumps any right of Hezbollah or al Qaeda to be sure their telephone calls into America will not be monitored. The decision is much more passionate political diatribe than dispassionate legal analysis.  The Judge found standing because it was essential for her to issue her order to halt the program, NOT because the kind of interest traditionally required to establish standing had been shown.

But,  the Judge cleverly tried to provide the appearance of judicial fairness if not the reality.  She dismissed the claim in the lawsuit that dealt with data-mining of phone records. (The lawsuit alleged that the NSA "uses artificial intelligence aids to search for keywords and analyze patterns in millions of communications at any given time.")  The Judge ruled that not enough had been publicly revealed about that program to support the claim and further litigation would jeopardize state secrets. 

The ACLU brought the case.  ACLU executive director Anthony Romero called Taylor's opinion "another nail in the coffin in the Bush administration's legal strategy in the war on terror."   An interesting choice of words: the Judge's late ex-husband was in the funeral business and he was nailed for crimes.

The biography of the Judge at Wayne State University's Detroit African-American History Project begins: "An attorney and judge, Anna Diggs Taylor was the first African-American woman appointed to a federal judgeship in Michigan and later became the first African-American woman to be named chief federal judge in the Eastern District of Michigan. Taylor has used her positions to advance civil rights throughout the United States."

The Judge is a Leftist Democrat who just used her position to accord civil rights to terrorists and hamstring the United States government in doing what it is bound to do: protect the American people from enemies, both foreign and domestic.

The AP article's lead: "Noting 'there are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,' a federal judge ruled Thursday that President Bush had exceeded his authority when he allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant."

The "rationale" for the ruling: the terrorist surveillance program implemented by the National Security Agency at the instruction of the President of the United States violates the rights to free speech and privacy, as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.  

The Fourth Amendment bars "unreasonable searches and seizures," not all searches and seizures.  The terrorist surveillance program is reasonable.  NOT surveilling phone calls between a terrorist abroad and someone in America is unreasonable!

And the Commander-in-Chief has some inherent powers, especially when the United States is under attack!

In 1979 (before Congressman Diggs, whose office the Judge had managed before their divorce, was exposed as a criminal), his ex-wife (they divorced in 1971) became a federal judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. In 1997 she became the first African-American woman to be named chief judge of that court.  The next year, she stepped down as chief judge, but she has continued to sit as a senior federal  judge.

In that capacity, she issued her order to stop the terrorist surveillance program.

Congressman Diggs served in Congress for twenty-five years. He resigned from Congress in 1980, the year after the Judge became a judge.  The year BEFORE she became a judge, he was convicted of 29 counts of operating a payroll kickback scheme in his office, stripped of his committee and subcommittee chairmanships and censured by the House.

Believe it or not, Congressman Diggs argued during his trial and appeals that he was a victim of "selective prosecution" and being held to standards different from white colleagues. (Congressman William Jefferson, Democrat of New Orleans, Louisiana), take note!) Is the Judge's decision on the terrorist surveillance program the Digg's revenge on the federal government (and America), or just plain dumb?

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.