Sixth Circuit Court Orders Dismissal of Domestic Spying Lawsuit against NSA
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU against the warrantless domestic spying that was being conducted by the National Security Agency. The order by the appeals court overturns a 2006 ruling by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor. By a 2-1 majority, the Circuit Court found that the plaintiff failed to demonstrate that it has standing to sue, regardless of the fact that, since the ACLU has no access to the secret records of the NSA, it cannot prove its suspicion that its members were targets of the spying.Writing for the majority, U.S. Circuit Court Judge Alice Batchelder, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, stated, "The plaintiffs have no evidence... that the NSA has actually intercepted (or will actually intercept) any of their conversations." While remaining curiously silent on the fact that, because the spying program was secret, the records of who was targeted cannot be accessed by those who suspect that they were subjected to judicially unsanctioned surveillance, Bachelder sharply criticized District Judge Diggs' original ruling from the facts, and even at one point scorned the plaintiff group, itself, by using the term "thinly veiled ruse" to describe a claim by the ACLU that the warrantless spying by the Bush Administration was an infringement on the right of free speech enshrined in the First Amendment.
Bachelder was joined, but on far narrower grounds, by U.S. Circuit Court Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, appointed by the current President, George W. Bush.
Writing in dissent, U.S. Circuit Judge Ronald Lee Gilman cited multiple court precedents in which plaintiffs were found to have standing despite defects in capacity to show personal effect of the alleged acts against them.
Although the ACLU could file a petition for grant of writ of certiorari, thus seeking release from the Circuit Court for appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, it is unlikely that the high court would hear the case solely on its own merits since the Bush Administration claims its warrantless domestic spying program is not in operation at the present time. However, more than three dozen other cases have been brought together before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. If that decision is contrary to the one just issued by the Sixth Circuit Court, the existence of conflicting precedents might compel review by the Supreme Court in order to set uniform, mandatory precedent for the entire country.
Comments
Wrote Kelsos Nuts:
Wrote Dark Wraith:
Easy for you to say, Kelso's Nuts.
The Dark Wraith cowers at the thought of what "Black Sholes Option Pricing Model" sounds like in Latin (or Texan, for that matter).
Wrote Phydeaux Speaks:
It's alright, Yossarian.
Hey, I just saw your "Recommends". Happy birthday! (mine is the 11th)
Wrote Moody Blue:
At least you are not "older than dirt" like some people I know!
All the best on this new trip around the sun, dear friend.
Wrote trog69:
Happy 30th, Big guy!
Wrote trog69:
Good morning,DW. Welcome to Dw-DAY!. Wow, 7/7/07! Hey, wanna go to Vegas? I'll buy dinner.(Circus Circus has a hot dog stand to die for!)
Me: "Yes, you can have fries with that. No, make it to go, we gotta get to the sports book. C'mon, hurry up, this ain't no damn vacation; We got work to do!"
DW: "B... but it's my birthday?!"starts crying.
Me: Puts cigarette out in the ketchup smiley face DW has drawn in fries basket. "There, make a wish on that. Now let's go!"
Hope this is your best year, evar!
Wrote Dark Wraith:
Never mind the fool sports, for God's sake, trog; there are way too many all-you-can-eat places in that town, and some of them have serious carving stations.
Besides, it's been years and years since I was in Vegas, and the last time I was there, I was weirded out big time by those firearms stores that had the front window dancers brandishing weaponry I hadn't known was even allowed in civilian hands, much less where it was being featured by those erstwhile sales attendants.
That whole place was kind of strange back then. It's probably different now, though. I'm sure it's much more in keeping with the higher moral standards we have attained as both a nation and as individuals.
Yes, indeed.
The Dark Wraith wonders if they have evening services now at that chapel where people used to get hitched so impetuously.
Wrote Dark Wraith:
Good morning, Moody Blue.
That wish about this one being a great trip around the sun conjures images of hapless comets that smoke in on highly elliptical orbits, passing the Earth and then proceeding on to an encounter with the big dog, coming out the other side shattered from the huge differential gravitational forces encountered around perihelion.
In layman's terms, some comets come wheeling in on such tight orbits that they literally get pulled apart when they make the big turn at the giant yellow ball.
Sort of like the redneck truck on stupidly high struts I saw last month make a turn too fast. The front, driver's side wheel assembly just went flying off. The guy in the Lexus waiting at the intersection looked most surprised when the whole front end of his car got thoroughly disrespected by that large tire and rim slamming into it. The whole scene was made even more dramatic because the truck, now missing a rather important set of parts, continued around the grinder drilling big metal parts onto (and into) the asphalt. The spray of sparks was totally cool.
The lesson in that story is obvious: go too fast around the tight corners in life, and you're liable to have your wheel fly off.
The Dark Wraith believes it's a lesson from which everyone can draw benefit.
Wrote Dark Wraith:
Good morning, Phydeaux Speaks.
Yours is on the eleventh of this month, huh? That would mean you're a 7-11 kind of guy.
When I was younger, you'd see those "7-11" convenience stores just about everywhere. I always liked going into those places, even though stuff was expensive. As I recall, though, they usually had a special on something to eat, like hot dogs two for a buck. I liked to go in there late, when the wieners had been roasting on that roller rack all day. The long period of roasting gave the dogs an almost jerky-like consistency.
I never worked at a 7-11. I probably would have wanted the graveyard shift, just so I could pound down day-old hot dogs all night. Of course, the graveyard shift is the one when the robbers usually come in. That wouldn't be much of a problem for me: I'd just give them the money. If, however, they went for the wieners, that's when there would be an exchange of gunfire.
The Dark Wraith has no patience for the criminal element that knows not where to draw the line.
Wrote Father Tyme:
Moody Blue,
Easy on that "older than dirt" comment! Some of us had to set up the mountains and things for you guys!
Wrote Father Tyme:
Hey DW,
It works. Damnfino!
Grassy-ass!
Wrote My Pet Goat:
Birthday salutations to you Mr. Wraith. None one needs to inquire into your age; we all know wraiths are timeless.
Wrote Moody Blue:
Wraith,
I was thinking more in terms of our being passengers on spaceship Planet Earth - but I liked the analogy of the comet thing and turning high-struttin' red-neck-ed corners too fast. (I think not all comets shatter and can gain strength from their orbital sling back to the cosmos?)
---
Father Tyme,
Did you have to make the terrain so danged rugged? And, sheesh, hiding all those dinosaur fossils surely has confused "some" folks, oh don't ya know!
:-)
---
Re: 7-11 ... 7-Eleven does Kwik-E:
7/1/07 ...7-Eleven Inc. turned a dozen stores into Kwik-E-Marts, the fictional convenience stores of "The Simpsons" fame, in the latest example of marketers making life imitate art.
Those stores and most of the 6,000-plus other 7-Elevens in North America will sell items that until now existed only on television: Buzz Cola, KrustyO's cereal and Squishees, the slushy drink knockoff of Slurpees.
It's all part of a campaign to hype the July 27 opening of "The Simpsons Movie," the big-screen debut for the long-running television cartoon, which loves to lampoon 7-Eleven as a store that sells all kinds of unhealthy snacks...
Wrote Kelsos Nuts:
Feliz Cumleanos, Espiritu Moreno:
In Texan B & S sounds like this: "Damn! 'Trip' Farish my (heh-heh) blind-trust manager wrote dollar puts because the STIGMAS were too high, and the dollar was really strong be-cause of how I managed the e-con-o-mee and I lost 50 million dollars. Oh well, Unca Dick said I could jus start another war."
Wrote Wild Clover:
DW-
Belated birthday felicitations...I've got until November to wait for mine.
Hopefully I'll have some computer time later this week, but life and work keep interfering with the important stuff.
I'm off to the funeral of a friend of ours..14, 15 years ago, we used to hang out with her and her daughters-one is autistic, while my late daughter was delayed and non-verbal. Judy was a great lady who did a lot of advocating for disabled and other "liberal" causes, and will be missed.
Wrote Dark Wraith:
Let us hope, Wild Clover, that this is the last grief you'll have to bear for a while.
And you need to send me a message letting me know when, exactly, some birthdays are.
The Dark Wraith keeps pretty lousy records, but any record is better than none.
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Your host of this Weblog is an award-winning college teacher and writer who specializes in economics, finance, mathematics, business administration, computer hardware and software skills, and English grammar and composition. His extensive writings on the history of the English language appeared on About.com in the avatar of the Selig Wraith in the 
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Hey DW:
Sorry to have been absent, been having fun and dealing with intricacies of Panamanian immigration laws, qualifying for single-payer national health, etc.
How goes?
As to your post, well...Bush can't commute every right-wing Harley driving meth lab proprietor, so tough noogies to all Christian gun and dope freaks who supported the douchebag in the White House from this Jewish atheist.
How many terrorists has domestic spying yielded? 0
How many church-going Meth dealers? in the limit as x approaches infinity....
Yo voy a quedarme a mi baina con la teoria de la financia al lado como siempre. Viva Fama! Viva Malkiel! Viva Black y Scholes! Haz el amor ni la guerra mucha menos!