Smackdown, Althouse style

Blogger and University of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse lays the law down on US District Court Judge Anna Diggs recent ruling against NSA wiretapping. Professor Althouse writes:

TO end her opinion in American Civil Liberties Union v. National Security Agency β€” the case that enjoins President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program β€” Judge Anna Diggs Taylor quoted Earl Warren (referring to him as “Justice Warren” not “Chief Justice Warren” as if she wanted to spotlight her carelessness): “It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of … those liberties … which makes the defense of the nation worthwhile.”

As long as we’re appreciating irony, let’s consider the irony of emphasizing the importance of holding one branch of the federal government, the executive, to the strict limits of the rule of law while sitting in another branch of the federal government, the judiciary, and blithely ignoring your own obligations.

So often, we’ve heard complaints about “activist” judges. They’re suspected of deciding what outcome they want, based on their own personal or ideological preferences, and then writing a legalistic, neutral-sounding opinion to cover up what they’ve done. That carefully composed legal opinion makes it somewhat hard for a judge’s critics to convince people β€” especially anyone who likes the outcome β€” that the judge did not decide the case according to an unbiased legal method of analysis.

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip: ST reader Fat Tone

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