Republican Judges on Appellate Court Take a Dive for Bush’s Warrantless Wiretapping

Lisa Cornwell for AP reports: CINCINNATI - A federal appeals court ordered the dismissal Friday of a lawsuit challenging President Bush's domestic spying program, saying the plaintiffs had no standing to sue. The 2-1 ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel vacated a 2006 order by a federal judge in Detroit, who found that the post-Sept. 11 warrantless surveillance aimed at uncovering terrorist activity violated constitutional rights to privacy and free speech and the separation of powers. U.S. Circuit Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, one of the two Republican appointees who ruled against the plaintiffs, said they failed to show they were subject to the surveillance. The dissenting judge, Democratic appointee Ronald Lee Gilman, believed the plaintiffs were within their rights to sue and that it was clear to him the program violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.