Marcy Wheeler first posted the decision, in which Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the government's warrantless surveillance of two lawyers for a Muslim charity organization known as Al-Haramain that the government suspected of being connected to terrorism, was illegal.
I have some calls out on this, but Wheeler and David Kravets already have good summaries. The case, Al-Haramain v. Obama, was originally filed during the Bush administration. Soon after taking office, the Obama administration followed its predecessors' lead in invoking the state-secrets privilege to dismiss the case.
What seems immediately significant to me about this ruling, beyond calling into question the legality of the warrantless wiretapping program, is that unless the government appeals, it will be beyond argument that both administrations have been abusing the state-secrets privilege by using it to prevent scrutiny of illegal behavior by the government.
More later.
-- A. Serwer
