The White House issued a strong-worded statement on Thursday,
defending the warrantless eavesdropping program as "firmly grounded
in law," hours after a federal judge ruled the program
unconstitutional and ordered its immediate halt.
"We couldn't disagree more with this ruling, and the Justice
Department will seek an immediate stay of the opinion and appeal,"
the statement said.
Earlier Thursday, US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled in
Detroit, Michigan, that the Bush administration's warrantless
eavesdropping program run by the National Security Agency (NSA) was
unconstitutional.
Taylor, the first judge to rule against the program since its
disclosure last December, said the program violated the separation
of powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the
constitution, and the law governing domestic wiretapping.
In its statement, the White House said the program was
"carefully administered, and only targets international phone calls
coming into or out of the United States where one of the parties on
the call is a suspected al Qaida or affiliated terrorist."
The whole point of the program, the statement said, was to
"detect and prevent terrorist attacks before they can be carried
out" and that it was the president "most solemn duty to ensure
their protection."
Describing the program as "one of our most critical and
effective tools in the war against terrorism," the statement said
the parties concerned had agreed that enforcement of the ruling
would be stayed, until the court would conduct a hearing scheduled
for Sept. 7 on the ruling.
The Justice Department, calling the program "a critical tool" to
detect and prevent a terrorist attacks in the anti-terrorism war,
said it would appeal the ruling.
In a statement, the department said the president had the
primary duty under the constitution to protect the American people,
and that the constitution gave the president the "full authority
necessary to carry out that solemn duty, and we believe the program
is lawful and protects civil liberties."
The lawsuit was filed in January by the American Civil Liberties
Union, on behalf of some journalists, scholars and lawyers who said
many of their overseas contacts might be targeted by the program
and that made their work difficult.
Shortly after the program's disclosure, Bush acknowledged that
he had authorized the NSA to eavesdrop, without court warrants, on
international calls and international e-mails of people suspected
of having links to terrorists when one party to the communication
was in the United States.
A law, the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, makes it
illegal to spy on US citizens in the United States without warrants
issued by a secret court.
The revelation of the program created a political debate in
Washington, and congressional hearings have been held to
investigate its legality.
(Xinhua News Agency August 18, 2006)
