NSA Surveillance Watch: Two Lawsuits Filed Today to Seek End of President Bush’s NSA Electronic Surveillance Program
Legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights Bill Goodman,left, talks to media on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2006 in New York. This morning Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a lawsuit against President George W. Bush, the head of National Security Agency (NSA)and the heads of the other major security agencies, challenging the NSAs surveillance of persons within the U.S. without juridical approval or statutory authorization. An unidentified aide is in the background.
ASSociated Press: Groups Sue to Stop Domestic Spying Program
Two lawsuits were filed Tuesday in federal court that seek to end 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.
Well, these groups have FINALLY done something besides bellow about President Bush’s NSA terrorist/Al Qaeda Surveillance program . Of course, they will lose at the United States Supreme Court but the attorneys will be very busy billing for the legal challenge which if successful will make America safer for terrorists.
Lawsuit #1:
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.
And Flap could care about terrorist or terrorist sympathizers who have been imprisoned as enemy combatants fighting against the United States? Why not just release them so they can continue their terrorist activities against Americans. The insanity of it ALL.
Lawsuit #2
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 List of the plaintiffs with links is:
American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Rabiah Ahmed
Arsalan T. IftikharNational Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Joshua Dratel (Statement)
Nancy Hollander (Statement)James Bamford, journalist/author (Statement)
Larry Diamond, Hoover Institution, Stanford University (Statement)
Christopher Hitchens, journalist/author (Statement)
Tara McKelvey, journalist/author
Barnett Rubin, New York University Center on International Cooperation
Background of Organizations and People Involved in the Lawsuit >>
The ACLU’s Press release is here: ACLU Sues to Stop Illegal Spying on Americans, Saying President Is Not Above the Law.
Andrew McCarthy at the National Review Online has How to “Connect the Dots†– Well, for one thing, you use surveillance.
Washington’s scandal du jour involves a wartime surveillance program President Bush directed the National Security Agency to carry out after al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001. The idea that there is anything truly scandalous about this program is absurd. But the outcry against it is valuable, highlighting as it does the mistaken assumption that criminal-justice solutions are applicable to national-security challenges.
Read it All
Michelle Malkin: YOU CAN’T “CONNECT THE DOTS…”
More blog reax to the ACLU lawsuit…
AJ Strata
All Things Beautiful
Stop the ACLU
Daily Pundit
Dread Pundit Bluto***
Jeff Goldstein helpfully translates the ACLU’s press release for you. Must-read.
Stay tuned as the lawsuits progress through the federal court system and hearings begin in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Flap fears that the President will acquiesce to NSA program modifications before the United States Supreme Court rules on the existing program – thus rendering the lawsuits moot.
Will these modifications lead to a LESS SAFE America?
And who then will take the blame if another terrorist act takes place as a result of the failure to connect the dots……the ACLU, the Congress or President Bush?
Previous:
NSA Surveillance Watch: Specter Skeptical of Domestic Spy Program
NSA Surveillance Leak Case Watch: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to Testify
NSA Surveillance Watch: AP Poll- Most Say U.S. Needs Warrant to Snoop? – RECYCLED
NSA Surveillance Leak Case Watch: Vice President Cheney Strongly Defends Eavesdropping Operation
Cox & Forkum: One Man’s Whistleblower
Global War on Terror Watch: Why the NSA Monitors Communications of Al-Qaida
NSA Surveillance Leak Case Watch: President Bush Defends NSA Surveillance
NSA Leak Case Watch: New York Times’ Reporter James Risen
NSA Leak Case Watch: Justice Deptartment Probing Domestic Spying Leak
NSA Surveillance Watch: President Had Legal Authority to OK Taps
NSA Surveillance Watch: Calls for Congressional Hearings
Technorati Tags: NationalSecurityAgency, NSA, AssociatedPress, NSASurveillance, NSALeakCase, NewYorkTimes, RasmussenPoll, ArlenSpecter
One Comment
Tyler
Hi Flap –
Just thought I would point out that this is not a Republican vs. Democrat issue. This is a President and Administration that has greatly overreached their constitutional authority. And now leading conservatives, including Grover Norquist (!!!), want serious hearings and checks on presidential power. Wow.
Leading Conservatives Call for Extensive Hearings on NSA Surveillance; Checks on Invasive Federal Powers Essential – 1/17/2006 6:36:00 PM
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=59381
Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances (PRCB) today called upon Congress to hold open, substantive oversight hearings examining the President’s authorization of the National Security Agency (NSA) to violate domestic surveillance requirements outlined in the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, chairman of PRCB, was joined by fellow conservatives Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR); David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; Paul Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, in urging lawmakers to use NSA hearings to establish a solid foundation for restoring much needed constitutional checks and balances to intelligence law.
“When the Patriot Act was passed shortly after 9-11, the federal government was granted expanded access to Americans’ private information,” said Barr. “However, federal law still clearly states that intelligence agents must have a court order to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans on these shores. Yet the federal government overstepped the protections of the Constitution and the plain language of FISA to eavesdrop on Americans’ private communication without any judicial checks and without proof that they are involved in terrorism.”