WASHINGTON — A federal judge who has criticized the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism has resigned from a special court that has authority over approving electronic surveillance and searches of terrorism suspects, court officials confirmed Wednesday.
The move by Judge James Robertson came shortly after disclosures that the National Security Agency had been monitoring international phone calls and other communications of hundreds of Americans since Sept. 11 without seeking the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Robertson, who submitted his resignation from the 11-person tribunal Monday, continues to sit on the U.S. District Court here.
The Washington Post -- citing unnamed associates of the judge who were familiar with his decision to step down -- reported Wednesday that Robertson privately had expressed deep concern that the NSA surveillance program, which was personally authorized by President Bush in 2002, was legally questionable and may have tainted the court's work.
Robertson has not spoken publicly about the reason for his resignation.
The New York Times' disclosure of the spy program last week ignited a political firestorm, with charges that the administration skirted federal law in ordering domestic surveillance without judicial review. The disclosure has also focused attention on the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which Congress created in 1978 as a check on the ability of the executive branch to collect intelligence inside the United States.
Bush said over the weekend that he had the power under the Constitution and under an authorization from Congress after Sept. 11 to conduct surveillance without court approval.
Robertson was appointed to the federal bench by President Clinton in 1994. He worked as a civil rights lawyer in Mississippi in the late 1960s and 1970s. Later, as a corporate lawyer in Washington, he helped launch a successful discrimination suit against the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on behalf of black narcotics agents.
Last year, in a rebuke to the Bush administration, he ruled that tribunals the Defense Department had established after Sept. 11 to try suspected terrorists violated military law and the Geneva Convention. The decision, reversed by an appeals court, is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
