Fred’s Delays and FISA

[See the update below]

I never did comment on the FISC order for more briefing on the question of whether it–the Court–should turn over to the ACLU the Court’s decisions ruling parts of the warrantless wiretap program illegal. 

While the order is signed by the Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, I had a deja vu of the request Judge Walton (who joined the FISC about mid-way into the events that the ACLU hopes to reveal with its motion to unseal these orders) made inviting the parties in the Scooter Libby trial to submit briefs about whether or not Libby’s sentence could be legally commuted if he had never served a day of jail time. It was as if, having seen the results of a lot of hard work disappeared instantaneously, Walton was hoping someone would find a way to negate that process.

The FISC is in a similar position. After two unfavorable rulings, the Administration has decided to take its toys and go home; the amendments to FISA basically turn the FISC into a rubber stamp for the Administration. So the Court’s call for more briefing seems like a hopeful attempt to restore the quaint separation of powers mandated by the Constitution.

At any rate, I’m wondering whether the FISC’s efforts to restore that balance will once again fall victim to the Administrations pre-emptive temporal jujitsu. The deadlines the Court set for briefs were:

Administration response: August 31, 2007

ACLU reply: September 14, 2007

Yet today’s WaPo reports that the Administration has a deadline, today, that they’re going to miss.