FISA court turns down ACLU request for secrets

AP/CBS:

The nation's spy court said Tuesday that it will not release its documents regarding the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in a rare on-the-record opinion, said the public has no right to view the documents because they deal with the clandestine workings of national security agencies.

The American Civil Liberties Union asked the court to release the records in August. Specifically, the organization asked for the government's legal briefs and the court's opinions on the wiretapping program.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, who sits on the national security court, refused. Releasing the documents would reveal closely guarded secrets that enemies could used to evade detection or disrupt intelligence activities, he said. Sources could be outed, targets could be tipped off and diplomatic relations could be damaged.

"All these possible harms are real and significant and, quite frankly, beyond debate," Bates wrote.

Among the key documents being sought were court orders that allowed the Bush administration to bring the wiretapping program under the court's purview in January. Previously, the Terrorist Surveillance Program allowed investigators to monitor international phone calls and e-mails to or from the U.S. without court oversight.

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Actually the Constitution allows enemy communications to be monitored without court oversight and the Bush administration is just trying to reach a political accommodation with Democrat terrorist rights advocates. The ACLU is clearly a terrorist rights organization concerned about our attempts to stop the next enemy attacks by listening to his communications with his agents in the US and elsewhere. No one communicating with the enemy should have any expectation of privacy in those communications. The ACLU is al Qaeda's useful idiot when it comes to thwarting our attempts to thwart al Qaeda's attacks.