I may have to forgive Kollar-Kotelly for some of the harsh thoughts I had when she presided over Microsoft getting off easy in its U.S. antitrust trial. From the Washington Post:
Twice in the past four years, a top Justice Department lawyer warned the presiding judge of a secret surveillance court that information overheard in President Bush’s eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to obtain wiretap warrants in the court, according to two sources with knowledge of those events.
The revelations infuriated U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly — who, like her predecessor, Royce C. Lamberth, had expressed serious doubts about whether the warrantless monitoring of phone calls and e-mails ordered by Bush was legal. Both judges had insisted that no information obtained this way be used to gain warrants from their court, according to government sources, and both had been assured by administration officials it would never happen.
Hell hath no fury like a pissed off judge.
I can’t help but notice that this story came out the same day the administration revealed some details about a foiled plot to fly a jet into a skyscraper in L.A. in 2002. While I am somewhat appeased by hearing a few details about one of the many plots the government claims to have stopped…. well, I’m sure that the timing of these stories is purely coincidental.