Impact of surveillance concerns federal judge
Bush admitted he has ordered the National Security Administration to monitor phone calls and other communication of those known to have links to al-Qaida or other terrorist organizations after the New York Times wrote a story about it last week.
This circumvents the process laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 that requires a warrant for wiretaps and other intelligence-gathering monitoring, although Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales say Congress granted the president the authority to do this after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Benson, who sits on an 11-person panel of judges that evaluates warrants for surveillance, said it is not his place to decide or even comment on whether the president can or cannot order such surveillance. He is concerned, though, how the information gathered through the secret surveillance might affect warrant requests he will have to evaluate in the future.
Benson just wants to know more about what the NSA has been doing. The FISA court must evaluate warrant requests for surveillance based on certain criteria, including how the government obtained information and how reliable it might be. By not knowing specifics on what the president has ordered, any future warrants that may be requested based on the information could be affected. But Benson is not sure how or if there will even be an effect in the long run.
Some have criticized Bush for sidestepping the law. U.S. District Judge James Robertson, who also sits on the FISA court, resigned in protest, based on information obtained by the Washington Post.
Benson said he has no criticism over what the president is doing and has no plans to resign over it.
"I think this is a bit overblown," Benson said.
He said he is likely to learn more answers at a briefing for the FISA judges that may be scheduled for January.
"I think it would be helpful to know," he said.
Benson was appointed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2004 by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and his term expires in 2011. He was chief of staff for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, from 1986 to 1988. He was also an associate deputy U.S. attorney general and a U.S. attorney for Utah before being nominated as a district judge in 1991. He is now the chief judge for the U.S. District Court.
E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com
You can be the first to comment on this story.