JUDGE: PRES. BUSH'S WIRETAP PROGRAM VIOLATES CONSTITUTION & MUST STOP

JUDGE: PRES. BUSH'S WIRETAP PROGRAM VIOLATES CONSTITUTION & MUST STOP
It?s a historic bout in the battle of the branches: the executive says it?s legal, but the judiciary says it?s not. It concerns the government?s domestic spying program ? the monitoring of Americans? phone calls and e-mail messages without warrants. Today, in a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration, a federal court ruled that the program is unconstitutional ? and must stop. In a decision, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, of the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan Southern Division, struck down the NSA program, which she said violates the rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution. The judge?s 44-page memorandum and order also says the program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) passed by Congress in 1978. Because of those things, the judge says the domestic spying program must stop. And then there?s this: in a stunning claim against the president, the judge writes that President Bush violated the Constitution, the decision saying, ?The President of the United States... has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders." The Justice Department says it will appeal.