The ruling on Wednesday by a Federal District Court Judge that the Bush warrentless wiretapping program was illegal has been well reported here. If you missed it, please check out Pluto's short and sweet recommended diary on the subject.
But I found today's Cap Times article to be a nice reminder that at least one senator protested the program from the beginning.
In 2005, when the Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution learned of the Bush/Cheney administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, he said it was illegal.
More excerpts after the jump...
Senator Feingold has not wavered from this opinion and has now, as of last Wednesday, received some vindication from the courts.
The senator was graceful in acknowledging the fact. "From the day that I learned about the warrantless wiretapping program in 2005, I have been convinced that it was illegal," said the senator. "Now, despite the government trying to throw up every procedural roadblock imaginable in this case, the judge has ruled that the Bush administration broke the law. This decision is a positive step toward finally achieving some accountability for the illegal program that President Bush authorized for more than five years. We can and must fight terrorism aggressively without breaking the law."
As others have pointed out, the Obama administration is now implicated by extension, since it has continued this program. (Again, see Pluto's diary for an excellent summary of the dilema Attorney General Holder now faces.) And Feingold has not abandoned his criticism of the program now that a democrat is in the white house. What are we to make of the reversal on Obama's campaign rhetoric about ending the program?
I recall seeing former Vice President Al Gore on David Letterman's show a couple of years back. When Letterman asked him how much the general public knows about what is really going on, Mr. Gore replied "about ten percent." So, I have no doubt that our national security is an extremely complex matter of which I likely know about ten percent. Still, I have to believe that we can do national security without violating our constitution.
I especially like the last phrase of this parting shot from the Cap Times:
Now that the federal courts say he is right, it is time for the naysayers -- on the right and, frankly, within an Obama administration that should long ago have scrapped Bush’s lawlessness -- to wake up and smell the Bill of Rights.
Wake up and smell the Bill of Rights. Indeed.