Groups Sue to Stop Domestic Spying Program
NEW YORK - Two lawsuits were filed Tuesday in federal court that President Bush's electronic eavesdropping program, saying it is illegal and exceeds his constitutional powers.
The lawsuits — one filed in New York by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the other in Detroit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups — say the program bypasses safeguards in a 1978 law requiring court approval of electronic monitoring.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is suing Bush, the head of the National Security Agency and the heads of the other major security agencies.
The organization, which represents hundreds of men held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, must now audit old communications to determine whether "anything was disclosed that might undermine our representation of our clients," said Bill Goodman, the center's director.
The Detroit lawsuit, which names the National Security Agency and its director, said the program has impaired plaintiffs' ability to gather information from sources abroad as they try to locate witnesses, represent clients, do research or engage in advocacy.
It was filed by the ACLU, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Greenpeace and individuals on behalf of journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations that communicate with people in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere.
A spokesman for the Justice Department disputed the lawsuits' assertions.
"We believe these cases are without merit and plan to vigorously defend against the charges," Brian Roehrkasse said.
[Read on here.]
... I want to note that someone, at least, is finally doing something to stop this terrible depradation of our most fundamental civil liberty, the right to clandestinely communicate with terrorist groups abroad: the ACLU, CAIR, Greenpeace, and the Center For Constitutional Rights (plus some individual plaintiffs, including one celebrity, of a sort) have gone to federal court to shut down the NSA intercept program:
[...]
Apart from such celebrity plaintiffs, the organizations behind these lawsuits make for some odd bedfellows (or perhaps not so odd, if one isn't obliged to accept at face value their descriptions of themselves): side by side with the American Civil Liberties Union is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a radical Arabist group that has many members who have been suspected, indicted, and even convicted of abetting jihadi terrorism; Greenpeace, which in fact engages in aggressive "action directe," such as trying to ram Navy vessels attempting to test defensive anti-missile systems.
And of course, let's not forget the Center for Constitutional Rights, a group that is probably further to the left than Michael Moore, ...
