-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 3, 2007 5:52:27 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Killing Other Humans Higher Priority Than Saving
Endangered Species, Judge Says
(This Democratic judge (a Clinton appointee) has bent over and
spread 'em, like other Democrats)
Whales get blown off: Federal court says Navy can do sonar testing
Bob Egelko
San Franisco Chronicle, September 1, 2007
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/01/
BAEVRT7DT.DTL
A federal appeals court allowed the Navy on Friday to resume using
underwater sonar blasts in anti-submarine warfare tests off
Southern California despite possible harm to endangered whales,
saying the nation's military needs come first.
"The safety of the whales must be weighed, and so must the safety
of our warriors. And of our country," said the Ninth U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The 2-1 ruling suspended an Aug. 6 injunction by a federal judge in
Los Angeles that ordered the Navy to halt the sonar experiments
during training exercises off the Channel Islands planned through
January 2009. Three of the 14 scheduled tests had already been
conducted before the judge intervened.
In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper said the
underwater sound waves could harm nearly 30 species of marine
mammals, including five species of endangered whales. She said the
Navy's planned protective measures were "woefully inadequate and
ineffectual," and cited the Navy's estimate that the tests would
cause 466 permanent injuries to whales.
The appeals court said Cooper had failed to consider the need for
military preparedness.
"We are currently engaged in war, in two countries," said Judge
Andrew Kleinfeld in the majority opinion, joined by Judge Consuelo
Callahan. "There are no guarantees extending from 2007 to 2009 or
at any other time against other countries deciding to engage us, or
our determining that it is necessary to engage other countries.
"We customarily give considerable deference to the executive
branch's judgment regarding foreign policy and national defense,"
the court said.
In dissent, Judge Milan Smith said the nation's environmental laws
apply to the armed forces. He said the Navy is conducting similar
tests all over the world and would suffer no hardship by delaying
its Southern California exercises until it adopts adequate
protective measures.
"There is no 'national security trump card' that allows the Navy to
ignore (the environmental law) to achieve other objectives," Smith
said.
But the court majority said the tests should be allowed to resume,
while the case continues, because the government is likely to be
able to show that sonar can be used safely, with some protective
measures, and that the Channel Islands area is an essential testing
site.
Capt. Scott Gureck, a Navy spokesman, said the ruling "allows us to
resume active sonar training for our carrier and expeditionary
strike groups," training he said was essential before the groups
deploy to the western Pacific, the Middle East and around the world.
Sonar is the best way to detect quiet diesel-electric submarines
used by more than 40 nations, including Iran and North Korea, the
Navy said.
Attorney Michael Jasny of the Natural Resources Defense Council,
which has challenged the sonar tests in years of litigation, said
the organization would press its case in the appeals court.
The question is not whether the Navy needs such tests, he said, but
"whether the environment should be unnecessarily harmed and
endangered species threatened."
There are many steps the Navy could take to lessen the harm to the
whales and other marine life, Jasny said, including measures that
foreign navies and even the U.S. Navy itself have used in the past.
The Navy had been allowed to conduct sonar tests in the area in
previous years while taking such steps as using lookouts and
reducing sound levels when whales were spotted, or during
conditions that allowed sound waves to travel farther than usual.
Navy officials have dropped most of those measures from the current
tests, apart from the continued posting of lookouts. The California
Coastal Commission, which reviewed the testing plans, concluded in
January that additional protections were needed, such as steering
clear of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary and the
annual migration path of the gray whales.
The Navy said it was not bound by those conditions and declared
that its tests would cause no harm to marine mammal populations.
Gureck, the Pacific Fleet spokesman, said the Navy "employs
extensive mitigation measures, approved by the National Marine
Fisheries Service, to minimize the risk to marine life whenever
active sonar is used."
----------
July 3, 2006
Federal Judge Issues Orders to Navy
Hatched by Dafydd
http://biglizards.net/blog/archives/2006/07/federal_judge_i.html
First the federal judiciary took control away from the president in
the treatment of unlawful combatants; then they seized control away
from Congress in the ratification and enforcement of the Geneva
Conventions and for determining the jurisdiction of the federal
courts -- which can now determine their own jurisdiction, and the
Constitution be damned.
And now, a federal judge ("but some are more equal than others")
has anointed herself the Commander in Chief of the armed forces;
she has issued an order to the Navy not to use sonar during a "mid-
frequency active sonar" test in the Pacific Ocean.
Why? Because sonar might bother whales:
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday barring
the Navy from using a type of sonar, allegedly harmful to marine
mammals, during a Pacific warfare exercise scheduled to begin this
week.
The order comes three days after the Navy obtained a six-month
national defense exemption from the Defense Department allowing it
to use "mid-frequency active sonar."
In a lawsuit filed by [the usual suspects] before a judge appointed
by [take a wild guess -- hint: 1999], Judge Florence-Marie Cooper
ruled that there was a "possibility" (her word) that the sonar to
be tested might kill, injure, or disturb the whales, dolphins,
walruses, otters, beavers, dogpaddling elephants, or other
mammalian species that just happened to be lounging around
Hawaii... so therefore, she has ordered the military not to test it.
In a related decision, rumor has it that Judge Cooper is just about
to rule that we can no longer use radar, because it might emit
radiation; fighter jets, because they're too noisy (and too closely
associated with George W. Bush); and Predator drones -- because, as
a vegetarian, she doesn't like the sound of that name.
Were I giving advice to the president, I would tell him, "it's time
to draw a line in the sand." (As a Texan, he should appreciate the
reference.) Bush should call a press conference and announce that
the federal judiciary does not have authority over the military;
the Constitution clearly gives that authority solely to the
president as Commander in Chief. So he thanks her honor for the
suggestion, but the test will proceed as planned, and as the
Pentagon has approved.
Lady, we are in a war, for God's sake. You don't stop the military
from testing the weapons that save our lives every day just because
your heart bleeds for Flipper, Shamu and all their undersea chums.
I realize your calendar stops at September 10th; but for the rest
of us, what happened the next day changed everything. In
particular, it changed forever the level of monkeyshines that we
are willing to tolerate in the war against jihadis.
The chutzpah of the federal judiciary is exceeded only by the
arrogance of the elite media.
So to be perfectly polite about it, Judge Florence-Marie Cooper can
go take a long walk on a short pier.
If the Commander in Chief DoD believes we need these tests to
defend the nation, then neither the judicial nor the legislative
branch has the least thing to say about it.
Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com.
www.ctrl.org
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Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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