Group Summary

Jocquia Bell Vince Scifo John Curran Ashley Smith Damian Haggerty Mass Communications 9/22/2009 Illegal Wiretapping (Bush Administration)

The article, “Judge Rejects Bush’s View on Wiretaps” was about federal judge Vaughn R. Walker rejecting the claim that President George Bush has the “ constitutional right as commander and chief” to do wiretaps without a warrant. The judge made his findings after a lawsuit filed by the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, who claimed to have evidence of an illegal wire tap used against it by the National Security Agency under the surveillance program started by President Bush after the terrorist attacks on September 11th. Judge Walker also stated that the rules of surveillance were established by Congress in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a warrant from a secret court. As this case is being ruled on, the Senate is overhauling the foreign intelligence law. This would reaffirm FISA as the exclusive means for the president to order wiretaps through court warrants, but it would also provide legal immunity to phone companies involved in the eavesdropping program. The sources used in this article are Judge Walker, the chief judge of the Northern District of California, who was also appointed by former President George Bush. Another source is Jon Eisenberg, a lawyer for Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and President George Bush. The range of permitted opinion in this article is that

illegal wiretapping is wrong in this case because the president does not have the power to conduct such a thing without a warrant. Most people would agree that it’s an invasion of privacy because the person who is being spied on doesn’t know why he is a suspect in the first place. However, it is not stated that the President could be doing wiretaps on people who aren’t a terrorist threat; on his own agenda. The article is overall more favorable toward the judge, who is giving the charity’s lawyers another chance to restructure their claim after certain evidence couldn’t be used, and makes Bush out to be the bad guy who is “eavesdropping” on innocent citizens and abusing his power. One of the main questions that go unanswered is what constitutes as a reason for a person to be wiretapped? What power does the president really have? Does the president have the right to not obey rules laid out by Congress?