Judges Need to Rule for the Law and Not for the Bushies' Doublespeak Rhetoric

The Bush Administration has made a serious business of appointing only judges who will kowtow to their rhetoric of fear, intolerance, and ultra rightwing ideology - any judge who tries to rule based on American law and with those little documents the Bushies treat like toilet paper such as the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights gets villified, with far right politicians all but encouraging their crazed constituents to do harm against these judges.

Yet we've recently had some wonderful examples of what happens when a brave jurist does what he or she is supposed to do: base decisions on law and precedent rather than on Bushie rhetoric, such as the U.S. Supreme Court in the Hamdan vs. U.S. case that says the military tribunals and such are not legal and with Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the U.S. District Court in Michigan who ruled yesterday that the NSA wiretapping the Bushies have conducted is unconstitutional and must be stopped. These are great moments for America and it is an abysmal shame that such moments have become so rare under the Bush empire.

Here's The Times on the NSA wiretap decision:

Ever since President Bush was forced to admit that he was spying on Americans’ telephone calls and e-mail without warrants, his lawyers have fought to keep challenges to the program out of the courts. Yesterday, that plan failed. A federal judge in Detroit declared the eavesdropping program to be illegal and unconstitutional. She also offered a scathing condemnation of what lies behind the wiretapping — Mr. Bush’s attempt to expand his powers to the point that he can place himself beyond the reach of Congress, judges or the Constitution.

“There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,” wrote Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the United States District Court in Detroit. Her decision was based on a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

She said Mr. Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when he ordered the National Security Agency to spy without a warrant on international phone calls and e-mail by Americans and foreign residents of the United States. She noted that the surveillance law was passed to prohibit just this sort of presidential abuse of power and provided ample flexibility for gathering vital intelligence. She also said that the program violated the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as the rights of free speech and association granted by the First Amendment.

The ruling eviscerated the absurd notion on which the administration’s arguments have been based: that Congress authorized Mr. Bush to do whatever he thinks is necessary when it authorized the invasion of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Bushies continue to lose ground in the many terror cases they bring before courts because they expect judges to rule based on Bush imperialism rather than evidence or law. This is from the Detroit Free Press:

Terror charges against two groups of Arab Americans arrested with hundreds of prepaid cell phones teetered in Michigan and collapsed in Ohio on Monday as authorities said they lacked evidence that the men intended to use the phones for evil.

Ohio authorities dropped charges against two Dearborn men arrested last week with hundreds of the disposable phones.

Meanwhile, officials in Tuscola County, in Michigan's Thumb, kept three Texans locked up Monday evening even after Michigan State Police and FBI officials said they were apparently wide-eyed tourists rather than would-be terrorists when they photographed the Mackinac Bridge.

The FBI -- which questioned the Texans, who are of Palestinian heritage, for several hours over the weekend after their arrest -- said Monday that "there is no imminent threat" to the iconic bridge linking Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas.

While local authorities in Michigan and Ohio feared the cell phones could be used in terrorism attacks -- they've been used to detonate bombs in Europe, the Middle East and Asia -- the men's relatives and friends said the men are innocent entrepreneurs buying cheap phones for marked-up resales. They were targeted, supporters said, because of their Arab heritage.

"I applaud the FBI and state in standing up for justice and goodwill," said Nabih Ayad, a Dearborn attorney who represents the three men.

But he expressed concern that the men were targeted because of their ethnicity.

Except for Zacharias Massoui who largely convicted himself, the U.S. has lost countless terrorism cases despite the fact that they have the deck - and the American public - stacked in their favor. Yet they have yet to bring the majority of such cases into a court because they know they do not have the evidence to charge them at the same time claiming they can hold these people forever without charging them which is patently WRONG.

We should be asking ourselves - and our elected officials - very hard questions about what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what we should be doing differently. The longer this Bush mess and imperialism goes on, the worse it is for the U.S. as a whole and for the entire free world who now sees America as corrupt, spineless, and willing to hurt anyone at anytime for seemingly no good reason whatsoever. I don't think we want that. Do you>