Round-Up: (Mostly) NSA Wiretap Ruling

First off, if you have not yet seen the opinion by Judge Taylor regarding the NSA terrorist suveiallance program, see this earlier post, by Lyle, which summarizes the ruling (the opinion can be downloaded in full here).

Jack Balkin had these thoughts at Balkinization, which welcomed the result of the decision but were quite critical of much of its reasoning; Marty Lederman mostly agrees with that sentiment in this post, also at Balkinization.

Glenn Greenwald, author of the new book How Would a Patriot Act?, has this breakdown of the decision on his own blog.

Eugene Volokh, of Volokh Conspiracy fame, has an interesting clarification of the claim that the TSP violates the first amendment here.

Meanwhile, in today’s editorial pages of the major papers, the reaction (as expected) is all over the map. On the left, the New York Times hails the decision as a “careful, thoroughly grounded opinion, [in which] one judge in Michigan has done what 535 members of Congress have so abysmally failed to do.” The Washington Post does not necessarily disagree with the result but was unsatisfied by the reasoning, calling it “neither careful nor scholarly”; that editorial board looks forward to further rulings on this matter, happily commenting that Judge Taylor’s decision “won’t be the last word.” The Wall Street Journal, however, is not so restrained in its distate for the ruling, as its editorial refers to the Judge as “President Taylor,” while wondering if she may have been motivated by a tempation to be hailed as “Civil Libertarian of the Year.”

Finally, one link that may be of interest that does not have to do with yesterday’s ruling: in a post here at PropertyProf Blog, Ben Barros reveals a letter from Justice Powell to Justice O’Connor in the midst of deciding Midkiff.