Justice Department Ordered To Release Spy Program Documents

This too is a big deal...

AP: Judge Orders Action on Spying Documents

A federal judge dealt a setback to the Bush administration on its warrantless surveillance program, ordering the Justice Department on Thursday to release documents about the highly classified effort within 20 days or compile a list of what it is withholding...

Glenn Greenwald (who's been all over this story like white on a Republican senator) dissects this decision in detail, including what could happen from here (he obviously expects an appeal). In a nutshell, here's how this started-

On the very day the New York Times first disclosed the existence of the warrantless eavesdropping program, The Electronic Privacy Information Center ("EPIC") filed a Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA") request with the Justice Department seeking the disclosure of four categories of documents relating to the NSA program, including documents reflecting the method used to determine which American citizens were eavesdropped on, as well as documents pertaining to the legal "justifications" for the Administration's eavesdropping program.

The Justice Dept. ultimately didn't comply and... here we are now.

As Glenn notes, the Court's decision states that-

[A] meaningful and truly democratic debate on the legality and propriety of the warrantless surveillance program cannot be based solely upon information that the Administration voluntarily chooses to disseminate.

His majesty will not be pleased.

This may, of course, end up going nowhere, but it's a good sign of a genuine pushback...

PS- Greenwald has two other great columns on this scandal this week:
-The NSA Scandal and public opinion myths
-The NSA scandal grows & other matters

Highly recommended reads. Print them out, share them with friends.