Say Anything Blog

The reaction to this week's opinion by Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in the ACLU v. NSA case has been lopsidedly negative, except among those who care not a whit about legal reasoning and are happy to see the rule of law trashed in order to embarass President Bush.

Check out some of these criticisms:

"Yes, sure, it is true that the judicial opinion issued yesterday is very weak, in places borderline incoherent, in its reasoning with regard to some issues. Anyone can see that. Most everyone who commented on it, including me, pointed that out."

"Unfortunately, the decision yesterday by a federal district court in Detroit, striking down the NSA's program, is neither careful nor scholarly, and it is hard-hitting only in the sense that a bludgeon is hard-hitting. The angry rhetoric of U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor will no doubt grab headlines. But as a piece of judicial work -- that is, as a guide to what the law requires and how it either restrains or permits the NSA's program -- her opinion will not be helpful."

The opinion "isn't quite ready for prime time".

These are responses from Glenn Greenwald, the Washington Post editorial board, and Orin Kerr respectively, three who have criticised the legality of the program in the past. Nearly everyone who has read and understands the opinion, left, right and center, all agree that it is a mediocre and unreasoned opinion. Hell, even at least one Kos diarist thinks it was an awful opinion. (h/t Powerline).

Scott Johnson at Powerline delivers the coup de grace - "anyone who knows what legal analysis and legal argument look like -- anyone who knows the requisites of legal reasoning -- must look on the handiwork of Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in the NSA case in amazement. It is a pathetic piece of work. If it had been submitted by a student in my second year legal writing class at the University of St. Thomas Law School, it would have earned a failing grade."

Folks, lawyers criticizing a federal judge for this lack of intellectual power is nearly unprecedented. This type of language is reserved for the truly horrid opinions in American law, such as the Dred Scott decision or Korematsu now relegated to the jurisprudence Hall of Shame.

ACLU v. NSA now resides there as well.

Crossposted from WILLisms.com