Free Republic

Anyone who knows what legal analysis and argument looks like -- anyone who knows the requisites of legal reasoning -- must look at the ( handiwork) of Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in the NSA case in amazement. It is a pathetic piece of work. If it had been submitted by a student in my second year legal writing class at the University of St. Thomas Law School, it would have earned a failing grade. On the issue of the legality of warrantless interception of enemy communication, for example, it is entirely conclusory. It does not address precedent. It assumes its...

The Honorable Anna Diggs-Taylor probably means well. The lone judge in American history to order a president to halt in wartime a foreign-intelligence-collection program that has undoubtedly saved lives probably sympathizes with the journalists, and others, who are suing to stop the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) in which NSA intercepts foreign-U.S. terrorist communications. She probably feels in her heart the program is wrong, and undoubtedly hears the footsteps of the federal judicial panel moving towards taking this case away from her and consolidating it with others. We can sympathize with her motives, and even share some of her gut feelings...