Secret Spying Showdown in Federal Appeals Court Wednesday

At stake in the battle is whether the courts have the power to review the government's warrantless wiretapping of Americans if surveillance is conducted in the name of the so-called "War on Terror." The government wants the court to dismiss two lawsuits aimed at shutting down warrantless surveillance and data-mining of Americans' calls and emails. These two cases include evidence that seems to back up the claims of illegal surveillance. Administration lawyers claim the courts have no business second-guessing the President when it comes to national security.

Volokh Conspiracy

[vague_ascetic]

• August 15, 2007: Live-Blog of Ninth Circuit Oral Arguments in NSA State Secrets Cases: [volokh.com]
• August 16, 2007: The Audio from the NSA State Secrets Cases in the Ninth Circuit is now available here. [volokh.com]

Both posts are authored by Orin Kerr [orinkerr.com]; Visiting Law Professor at GWU [gwu.edu], who lays claim to Univ. of Chicago Law School [uchicago.edu], as well as a purely distasteful affiliation [tinyurl.com]. Don't expect much from him. He's not one that Samuel Adams would have called a 'Friend of Liberty'. A good place to look for links though, and sometimes