Code Red for Liberty?

Today's The Baltimore Sun contains an article, Challenge to NSA spy program is rejected, which makes oldstyleliberal even more paranoid about the way things are going in America today.

A panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, by a 2-1 margin, overruled District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, among others. The plaintiffs alleged the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens is unconstitutional. Judge Taylor found for the plaintiffs, after which the Justice Department appealed the case to the 6th Circuit on grounds that the complainants lacked legal standing:

Justice Department attorney Gregory Garre argued that the plaintiffs, including the [ACLU], had alleged only "speculative" harm done to them, which would be insufficient to grant them standing to sue. The only way the plaintiffs could find out whether they had been the targets of wiretapping, he said, was if they obtained information about the surveillance program — in violation of the "state secrets" privilege.

Talk about a catch-22! If the 6th Circuit ruling stands, the Terrorist Surveillance Program, as NSA's post-9/11 warrantless eavesdropping initiative is called, is deemed legal until someone with standing successfully challenges it in court. To demonstrate standing, however, the challengers first have to show they've been wiretapped ... which can never happen, since that information is protected by the government's "state secrets" privilege.

So the neo-cons in charge win another one. Note that Judges Alice M. Batchelder and Julia Smith Gibbons of the 6th Circuit — the two judges that sided with the government in the NSA case — are both Republican appointees. Anyone see a pattern here?