:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 8.20.2007 ::
:: Secret Spy Court To Consider ACLU Request For Bush Spying Orders ::
A report from Wired News
By Ryan Singel
In a surprising move, a secret spying court ordered the Bush Administration to respond to the ACLU's request for the court to reveal the legal pinnings behind its decisions that gave legal blessing to the government's warrantless wiretapping program.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered (.pdf) the government to respond by August 31 to the ACLU's request to see the court's orders, which the court described as an "unprecedented request that warrants further briefing." The court's own unprecedented response writes the latest strange chapter in the ongoing secret spying saga.
Those orders reportedly include a still-secret decision curtailing the government's spying that led the Administration to successfully press Congress to hurriedly expand the government's spying authority before the summer recess.
The Administration said the nation was at risk because of a "surveillance gap," and a Republican Congressman let slip on Fox News that the secret spying court had made a secret ruling against the Administration. The nature of the so-called "surveillance gap" remains a mystery to the public and even the large majority of Congress.
ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer says this knowledge gap is exactly why the ACLU decided, on August 8, to petition the secret court (.pdf):
"Congress has just granted the president sweeping new surveillance authorities, yet no one knows why or whether that was needed," Jaffer said. "The point of this motion is to make the orders public."
Read more here.
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posted by me
:: 11:46:00 AM [+] ::
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