Judge Takes Swipe at Handling of Domestic Spying

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, the former chief judge of a secret national security court, had some harsh things to say about the administration's handling of the recently halted domestic spying program at a meeting of the American Library Association on Saturday.

McClatchy reports:

Lamberth declined to say whether he believes the National Security Agency's wiretap program was illegal. But he said he has "never seen a better way" to conduct domestic spying than under the national security court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The court secretly approves warrants for wiretaps and searches in counterterrorism and espionage investigations.

"I've seen a proposal for a worse way," Lamberth said. "That's what the president did with the NSA program."

Lamberth said he had insisted from the beginning that information the NSA gathered from the domestic spying program not be mixed with intelligence collected under court warrants. He said he never had to rule on the legality of the president's spying program.

The Jurist reports that Lamberth said he understands the need to act quickly during national emergencies, but that the president's wiretapping program went too far. "We have to understand you can fight the war [on terrorism] and lose everything if you have no civil liberties left when you get through fighting the war," he said. Lamberth also said that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "keeps [the executive] honest."

12:07 PM ET | 06-25-2007 | permalink