Bates' motel: You check in but judge don't check you out.

From Buzzflash.com:



Judge D. Bates' name most recently came up on December 11th when Bates, who also serves on the FISA Court (as appointed by Judge Roberts -- are you seeing a pattern here?), wrote the court decision refusing to release documents on the Bush Administration's illegal wiretapping program.
According to the First Amendment Center,

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in a rare on-the-record opinion, said the public had no right to view the documents because they deal with the clandestine workings of national-security agencies.

The American Civil Liberties Union asked the court to release the records in August. Specifically, the organization asked for the government's legal briefs and the court's opinions on the wiretapping program.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, who sits on the national security court, refused. Releasing the documents would reveal closely guarded secrets that enemies could used to evade detection or disrupt intelligence activities, he said. Sources could be outed, targets could be tipped off and diplomatic relations could be damaged.

"All these possible harms are real and significant and, quite frankly, beyond debate," Bates wrote.
Of further interest, Bates was the sole judge on FISA who signed the opinion, which means that he alone may have made the decision.

Before we proceed further, should we note that Bates writes in his own official court biography, "Judge Bates was on detail as Deputy Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation from 1995 to mid-1997." Fancy that! If ever there was an indication of Omerta to the right wing, it was serving as a Federalist Club attorney with the Ken Starr jihad.


But let's move on to the last few years.


When the General Accounting Office legally sought to compel Cheney to release the members of his secret energy task force, Judge Bates ruled on behalf of Cheney and against the GAO, an agency of Congress. Bates claimed that the GAO did not have "standing" to file suit against Cheney (echoes of unitary authority thinking here).


And remember that civil suit brought by Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson against various rogues in the Bush Administration? Guess who dismissed it? Judge John D. Bates. Bates claimed that the administration had the right to rebut Joe Wilson's "criticisms."


In 2002, Bates ruled that 32 members of Congress had no "standing" to sue the Bush Administration for unilaterally withdrawing from an ABM treaty.