I am very proud that it is a woman judge--and a Black woman judge at that!--who has had the gumption to stand up to the Republican machine and strike down their wiretapping program as illegal. Federal court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled last week, the New York Times reported, "that the National Security Agency's program to wiretap the international communications of some Americans without a court warrant violated the Constitution, and she ordered it shut down."

Anna Diggs Taylor is no stranger to civil rights work--she earned her stripes in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and was appointed to the bench by President Jimmy Carter in 1979, the first African American woman to be named Chief Judge of the Eastern Region of the U.S. District Court (there still aren't many women in these positions, let alone African American women). She has the reputation of being fair, tough, and impartial, outlawing discrimination where she sees it, whether the bias favors whites or minorities.

Of course, Judge Taylor is being demonized by the Republicans, and the ruling was being appealed almost before the ink dried. So be it. In a time of Gilded-Age-style pandering and cravenness, it's wonderful to see a judge with the backbone to make an independent, hard-nosed decision. If only we had someone like Judge Taylor as our Attorney General, instead of the brown-nosing Alberto Gonzalez!

Postscript: Has anyone noticed how the New York Times has been publishing a daily feature called "Names of the Dead" for the past few weeks? I think it's laudable that the newspaper is giving us access to the daily rollcall of American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it irritates me no end that the online version of this feature juxtaposes the names of the dead with the most frivolous stories and images from the day's paper as well, such as "The St-Tropez of Turkey," or "The Trouble When Jane Becomes Jack," complete with inane, happy-go-lucky photos:

Names of the Dead

The Department of Defense has identified 2,597 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:

McKENNA, John J. IV, 30, Capt., Marines; Brooklyn; Fourth Marine Division.

PHILLIPS, John P., 29, Sgt., Marines; St. Stephen, S.C.; Ninth Engineer Support Battalion, Third Marine Logistics Group, Third Marine Expeditionary Force.

Please! Have some respect for those who are dying over there in a quagmire they didn't deserve!