The terrorist-surveillance program warrantless wire-tapping of US citizens, for now at least, has been struck down:

A federal judge decision’s to strike down President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program was the first ruling over its legality, but surely not the last.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit ruled Thursday that the program violated the rights to free speech and privacy, as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

Of course, this being the Bush regime, they vow to keep pressing on. The gist of their arguement thus far has been this:

“we have the authority to do this, despite none explicitly being laid out in the Constitution. We can’t give justification because it would reveal state secrets, and we review the program among ourselves all the time — just ignore the fact that we all agree with it. If you oppose it you want the terrorists to operate unimpeded”

Terrible arguement. What’s even worse is how easily they could retract the central problem:

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration “couldn’t disagree more with this ruling.” He said the program carefully targets communications of suspected terrorists and “has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives.”

If it were this limited in scope, then they could simply go get a warrant like they were supposed to. I strongly doubt the FISA court would’ve rejected it, they’re basically a rubber-stamp court & this is the kind of thing that most wouldn’t mind rubber-stamping. Thus, by claiming a narrow scope & still avoiding a warrant they implicitly admit the opposite.

Damn, you’d think a former FoxNews employee would be more skilled at defending Bush administration policies. They’ve had all that practice…