Why Immunity Now?

by Steve Soto

A Bush-appointed federal judge has undermined the Bush Administration’s claim that the president has the authority as commander in chief to trump all limits on surveillance.

A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the “exclusive” means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government’s claim that the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law.

And why is Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling here important?

“Congress appears clearly to have intended to — and did — establish the exclusive means for foreign intelligence activities to be conducted,” the judge wrote. “Whatever power the executive may otherwise have had in this regard, FISA limits the power of the executive branch to conduct such activities and it limits the executive branch’s authority to assert the state secrets privilege in response to challenges to the legality of its foreign intelligence surveillance activities.”

Judge Walker’s voice carries extra weight because all the lawsuits involving telephone companies that took part in the N.S.A. program have been consolidated and are being heard in his court.

And here we are with congressional Democrats ready to give away the store to Bush and the telecoms, in the face of a ruling that the whole enterprise has been illegal.