For those of us who pine for justice to amend warranties wire tapping's, read this:

[midnight]

House Intelligence Staffer Tried to Intervene on Illegal Wiretap Program
By: emptywheel Sunday June 13, 2010 8:30 am

EFF's logo for its case against NSA warrantless wiretapping (graphic by hugh electronic via Flickr)

Scott Shane and Eric Lichtblau tell a sort of weird story of how a House Intelligence Committee staffer, Diane Roark, tried to reach out to William Rehnquist to get him to review Dick Cheney’s illegal wiretapping program.

Within months of the beginning of the eavesdropping program in October 2001, a staff member of the House Intelligence Committee, alerted to the possibility of illegal spying by N.S.A. insiders and hoping to prompt a high-level legal review, wrote to Chief Justice Rehnquist asking for a meeting, according to several people familiar with the episode.

The Congressional staff member, Diane S. Roark, routed the letter through the chief justice’s daughter, Janet Rehnquist, then the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services; Ms. Rehnquist was a high school acquaintance of one of Ms. Roark’s N.S.A. contacts.

There was no response, and it is not known whether the letter was seen by the chief justice or prompted him to make inquiries.

What’s weird about the story, first of all, is the method of approach. Are you telling me there are Congressional staffers who think Rehnquist could have legally reviewed this program in response to a request sent via his daughter (though it sounds like something Arlen “no longer Haggis or Scrapple” Specter might try)?

But then there’s a detail that Shane and Lichtblau don’t mention: Roark left HPSCI just after this attempt to have Rehnquist review the illegal wiretap program, ostensibly retiring.
http://firedoglake.com/

[MineralMan]

1. I don't think warranties should ever be amended.

[Sonney2020]

5. while consumer law is interesting, I'm not sure thats what this article on warrant-less wiretappings

was addressing. Spelling error perhaps? Do you read these articles you comment on?

[OnyxCollie]

2. Rehnquists's daughter is just as much of a tool as he was. nt

[choie]

3. while Ms. Roark

may have been naive to think that Rehnquist would even be willing to review the illegal wiretapping (much less rule against it), I think she should be admired for trying to do something. That's more than Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harmon and other Dems did.

[midnight]

4. *warrant-less