A SANER VOICE PREVAILED

"There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created in the Constitution."
--U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, writing in her 43-page decision yesterday, ruling that the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping surveillance program violates freedom of speech, protections against unreasonable searches, and a Constitutional check on the power of the President.

At this moment, there is legislation pending in Congress, which Arlen Specter has spearheaded, and which probably would have passed (with the help of spineless Democrats), that would remove many of the limits to the President's ability to do things the Constitution prohibits. In other words, the Congress of the United States is attempting to rewrite the laws of the land in order to make it okay for the President to break the laws of the land. Judge Taylor's ruling, at least for the time being, would render that legislation dead on arrival.

Three cheers for the ACLU! The only people who seem ready to fight tooth and claw for this crumbling democracy.

The Bushites are, of course, planning to appeal the case to the Federal Court of Appeals, and if they fail there, it could go on to the Supreme Court.