The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

A Reckless Decision That Will Be Reversed

by Utah GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch - 08/18/06 4:02 PM ET

The August 17 decision in ACLU v. NSA declaring unconstitutional the National Security Agency’s foreign intelligence surveillance program is poorly reasoned, reckless, and easy for an appeals court to reverse. Space here limits describing even the categories, let alone the instances, of errors in Judge Anna Diggs Taylor’s opinion.

Judge Taylor states conclusions without any analysis at all. She notes, for example, the plaintiffs’ claim that the NSA program violates the Administrative Procedure Act and, 39 pages later, concludes that it does. The pages in between lack any mention, even a description, of this claim. Judge Taylor simply skipped it.

Judge Taylor cites court decisions for the opposite of what they held. Not only is her claim that the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant for every search patently false, but she cited cases affirming that the president’s constitutional authority allows him to gather foreign intelligence without prior judicial approval.
Judge Taylor counted a plaintiff’s belief that something might happen to affect someone else’s behavior as a concrete “injury in fact