US District Judge Roger Vinson, who signed an order requiring Verizon to
give the National Security Agency telephone records for tens of
millions of American customers, attended an expenses-paid judicial
seminar sponsored by a libertarian think tank that featured lectures
from a vocal proponent of executive branch powers.
Vinson, whose term on the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court began in 2006 and expired last month, was the only member of the
special court to attend the August 2008 conference sponsored by the
Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment, according to
disclosure records filed by the federal judge.
The Center for Public Integrity collected the disclosure records as part of an investigative report
that revealed how large corporations and conservative foundations
routinely sponsor ideologically driven educational conferences for state
and federal judges.
It's unclear which lectures Vinson attended during the "Terrorism,
Civil Liberty, & National Security" seminar. FREE's website only
provides a general agenda for the program and no lecture transcripts.
But Eric Posner, a University of Chicago law professor who delivered two lectures, argued in a 2007 book he co-wrote — Terror in the Balance: Security, Liberty, and the Courts—that "the executive branch, not Congress or the judicial branch, should make the tradeoff between security and liberty."
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