A federal judge has resigned from a special court in protest over President George W. Bush's secret authorization of a countrywide warrantless domestic spying program, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
The action by US District Judge James Robertson stemmed from deep concern that the surveillance program that Bush authorized was legally questionable and may have tainted the work of the court that Robertson resigned from, the newspaper said. The Post quoted two associates of the judge in a story posted on its Web site.
Robertson was one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act program (FISA), which oversees government applications for secret surveillance or searches of foreigners and US citizens suspected of committimng acts of terrorism or espionage.
Quoting colleagues of Robertson, the Post said the judge had indicated he was concerned that information gained from the warrantless surveillance under Bush's program could have then been used to obtain warrants under the FISA program.
The Post said Robertson, without providing an explanation, stepped down from the FISA court in a letter late on Monday to Chief Justice John Roberts.
Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said early yesterday she had no information to offer on the matter.
Robertson was appointed a federal judge by former president Bill Clinton in 1994. Chief Justice William Rehnquist later appointed Robertson to the FISA court as well.
Robertson has been critical of the Bush administration's treatment of detainees at the US naval prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, most memorably in a decision that sidetracked the president's system of military tribunals to put some detainees on trial.
In related news, the American Civil Liberties Union claims that government documents it obtained show that the FBI planned to have terrorism investigators spy on a 2003 animal rights event at Indiana University.
The alleged plan to infiltrate a campus speech by an environmental activist was contained in hundreds of pages of heavily censored documents ACLU lawyers obtained from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act. An FBI spokeswoman denied the agency took any such action.
One of the documents, which the ACLU posted on its Web site on Tuesday, is from the Indianapolis FBI office and referred to plans to conduct surveillance and collect "general intelligence" during an April 2003 speech by animal-rights advocate Gary Yourofsky at the Indiana Memorial Union.
"It's hard to comprehend how surveillance of animal-rights groups makes us safer from terrorism, but it's easy to see how it threatens our constitutional rights to free speech and privacy," said Fran Quigley, executive director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union.
Wendy Osborne, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Indianapolis office, said the surveillance did not take place.
"I can tell you we did not conduct surveillance in Bloomington at that meeting or any meeting like that," she told the Herald-Times.
"The FBI has to operate under the attorney general's guidelines," she said. "We don't just go around and watch organizations and go to meetings to see who's showing up. We're not allowed to do that, nor do we do that," she added.
also see story:
Fishing for intelligence
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
RSS