Webloggin » Another Win for the Terrorists Courtesy of Carter Activist Judge Appointee

You had to know that Jimmy Carter’s interview in Der Spiegel was simply a diversionary tactic to take the spotlight of his disastrous legacy. Today a Federal Judge handed the terrorists a victory by ruling that the government’s warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency’s program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly taping conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.

The government argued that the program is well within the president’s authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.

The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration already had publicly revealed enough information about the program for Taylor to rule.

Who is Ana Diggs Taylor? She is a former Carter administration presidential campaigner who was rewarded for that effort by Carter in 1979 with a lifetime appointment to U.S. District Court in Detroit.

The Detroit Free Press did an article on her last week that characterized her as a non partisan straight shooter.

However she has been a not so non-partisan friend of the ACLU in ruling against nativity scenes on municipal property. She was also involved in a 1998 scandal that sought to remove a judge from a suit challenging the University of Michigan race based admissions policy while her husband was a regent at U-of-M. She failed in that attempt to remove the Judge but another Carter appointee on the activist 6th circuit stepped up to the plate to finish the job.

While former President and Democrat spokesperson Jimmy Carter sits in Germany bashing the United States, President Bush, Israel and fundamentalist Christians we are all reminded of the disastrous legacy he left back home.

The left should be proud of themselves. This will surely help bolster their attempts to frame themselves as the new protectors of national security.