NSA SpyingCNN reports:

A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the U.S. government’s domestic eavesdropping program is unconstitutional and ordered it ended immediately.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the Bush Administration disagrees with the ruling and has appealed.

The administration secretly instituted the program after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. It gives the National Security Administration [sic; “Agency”] authorization to secretly conduct wiretaps without a court order.

In a 44-page memorandum and order, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor struck down the NSA program, which she said violates the rights to free speech and privacy. (Read the complete ruling — PDF)

The defendants “are permanently enjoined from directly or indirectly utilizing the Terrorist Surveillance Program in any way, including, but not limited to, conducting warrantless wiretaps of telephone and Internet communications, in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Title III,” she wrote.

She declared that the program “violates the separation of powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First and Fourth amendments to the United States Constitution, the FISA and Title III.”

Her ruling went on to say that “the president of the United States … has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders.”

The lawsuit, filed January 17 by civil rights organizations, lawyers, journalists and educators, “challenges the constitutionality of a secret government program to intercept vast quantities of the international telephone and Internet communications of innocent Americans without court approval.”

[CNN: Link]

Via Boing Boing.

Rush Limbaugh opines:

Rush LimbaughRUSH: A federal judge ruled just moments ago that the government’s warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it. “US district Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, in Detroit, became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency’s program, which she says violates the rights of free speech and privacy.” Who is this babe? Who is Judge Anna Diggs Taylor? By the way, you see what’s happening, ladies and gentlemen, the judiciary, which I and others have been warning you, is out of control, is now assuming commander-in-chief duties. Some federal judge, Eastern District of Michigan, decides to take it on her shoulders. She campaigned for Jimmy Carter. He appointed her to the federal bench in 1979. She is a Carter appointee. It all makes sense.

…. Thank you, Jimmy Carter, you doofus. Glittering jewel of colossal ignorance, worst president in my lifetime and in the modern era, an utter disaster.

[Rush Limbaugh: Link]

I take a different view: it does not all make sense. Jimmy Carter is no doofus. And Judge Taylor is not a babe.