Nailed

The headline says it all:

U.S. Judge Finds Wiretapping Plan Violates the Law

Judge Taylor ruled that the program violated both the Fourth Amendment and a 1978 law that requires warrants from a secret court for intelligence wiretaps involving people in the United States. She rejected the administration'’s repeated assertions that a 2001 Congressional authorization and the president's constitutional authority allowed the program.

"“It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly when his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights,"” she wrote. "The three separate branches of government were developed as a check and balance for one another."”

Insert usual ho-hum GOP smear.

More goodness:

Judge Taylor rejected the government'’s threshold argument that she should not hear the case at all because it concerned state secrets. Dismissal on those grounds was not required, she wrote, because the central facts in the case -- the existence of the program, the lack of warrants and the focus on communications in which one party is in the United States -- have been acknowledged by the government.

Attorney Generalissimo Alberto Gonzales is filing the expected appeal. More GOP attacks. Old Reagan Admin lizards calling it a bad decision for this or that smear reason.

My fave passage in the federal judicial ruling:

"There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,"” she wrote, rejecting what she called the administration's assertion that the president "has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution itself."”

Ah, memories.

See 2006's Howard Beale, Jack Cafferty, give the pissed-off concurring analysis:

It means President Bush violated his oath of office, among other things, when he swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It means he's been lying to us about the program since it started, when tells us there's nothing illegal about what he'’s doing. A court has ruled it is illegal. And it means a 75 year old black female judge in Michigan has finally stepped in and done the job that Congress is supposed to do, namely oversight of the executive branch of government. But the Congress is controlled by Republicans. They are controlled by the President, and they have done nothing in the way of oversight.

What's the penalty for violating the Presidential Oath of Office? That should be worth at least impeachment if not removal if not five years in Leavenworth being a neo-Nazi's girlfriend.

It's disgusting, I know. He has soiled the American Presidency like an overindulged three year-old. Like Mel Gibson on South Park. Whenever he (or Gonzales) opens his mouth, a lie comes out.

The best analysis of the decision is by Glenn Greenwald, at Unclaimed Territory. It's a detailed breakdown of all 8 count 'em 8 different rebuttals of 8 arguments made by Gonzales on behalf of King George's total sovereignty.

We'll see if this decision is ever enforced or what the weasels do next. One thing's for certain these past two weeks.

The interesting season has begun.