Washington Post: FISA court judge quits over Bush spying program

By Lee Russ

Wednesday, December 21, 2005 at 01:38 PM

Another sign that America is getting sick & tired of business at the White House being conducted like it was a private business??  The Washington Post Link: reports that one member of the panel of judges that sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has resigned in response to the revelations about the president's warrantless wiretap program.

According to two associates of the Judge, James Robertson, he was concerned that the President's program "may have tainted the FISA court's work."

Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest
Jurist Concerned Bush Order Tainted Work of Secret Panel
By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; A01

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work.

Robertson, who was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, declined to comment when reached at his office late yesterday.

Word of Robertson's resignation came as two Senate Republicans joined the call for congressional investigations into the National Security Agency's warrantless interception of telephone calls and e-mails to overseas locations by U.S. citizens suspected of links to terrorist groups. They questioned the legality of the operation and the extent to which the White House kept Congress informed.

Sens. Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) echoed concerns raised by Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has promised hearings in the new year.

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