An airing of the NSA spying program

An airing of the NSA spying program
07:04 PM | Lyle Denniston | Comments (0)

A federal judge has ordered the Justice Department to make a legal defense in a public court hearing of the National Security Agency's program of communications monitoring during the war on terrorism -- a program under challenge in federal courts across the nation. Senior U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of Detroit on Wednesday denied a Department request to put off a hearing on the merits of a legal challenge in her Court until after she had ruled on the government's claim that the case must be dismissed based on the "state secrets privilege."

That is a significant rebuff to the Department's efforts, now spread out in a number of cases, to put a swift end to claims in court that President Bush acted illegally and unconstitutionally in authorizing the NSA, after the 2001 terrorist attacks, to monitor calls or e-mails suspected of being to or from terrorists. . In fact, the Detroit judge's order is such a serious setback that the Justice Department might be expected to try to challenge it with an immediate appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court, and perhaps to the Supreme Court. Judge Taylor's action amounted to significantly more than a case-management order.