Date Posted: Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Civil rights groups initiated lawsuits against the Administration and the NSA over the spying of U.S. citizens without obtaining authorization from the courts.

NEW YORK, Jan 17 (MASNET & News Agencies) - Civil liberties groups fired double-barreled lawsuits at President George W. Bush, challenging the legality of his domestic eavesdropping program and demanding its immediate suspension.

The suits were filed in New York by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and in Detroit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and a host of other advocacy groups, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Calling it an "illegal and unconstitutional program" of electronic eavesdropping on American citizens, both actions sought an injunction that would prohibit the government from conducting surveillance of communications in the United States without judicial warrants.

The CCR suit, challenging the NSA's surveillance of persons within the United States without judicial approval or statutory authorization, named Bush and Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency (NSA), which ran the program.

CCR legal director Bill Goodman noted that the legal action was being taken a day after the national holiday celebrating black civil rights leader Martin Luther King, who was the focus of FBI wiretaps for years.

"We are saddened that the illegal electronic surveillance that once targeted that great American has again become characteristic of our present government," Goodman said.

"As was the case with Dr. King, this illegal activity is cloaked in the guise of national security.

Goodman portrayed the president as a man on an unprecedented power grab at the expense of basic democratic principles, reports the Associated Press (AP).

"In reality, it reflects an attempt by the Bush administration to exercise unchecked power without the inconvenient interference of the other co-equal branches of government," said Goodman.

He said the public was starting to understand the assertion that the erosion of individual rights is a slippery slope that lets the government "brand anyone a terrorist with no right to counsel, no right to be brought before a judge and no right to privacy in communications."

The CCR has provided legal aid to people detained or interrogated in Washington's declared war on terrorism, reports Reuters news agency.

It said its work was directly affected by the surveillance, because its lawyers represent a potential class of hundreds of Muslim foreign nationals detained after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, reports the AP.

It said its attorney-client privilege was likely violated as it represented hundreds of men detained without charge as enemy combatants at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, and a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who was picked up at a New York airport while changing planes, sent to Syria and tortured and detained without charges for nearly a year.

The group said the surveillance program has inhibited its ability to represent clients vigorously, making it hard to communicate via telephone and e-mail with overseas clients, witnesses and others for fear the conversations would be overheard, the news agency reports.

The revelation last month of the wiretap program has sparked a debate about presidential powers, with civil libertarians contending that Bush overstepped his constitutional limits.

News of the program set off an outcry among both Republicans and Democrats, who questioned whether the administration was violating the Constitution by spying on Americans, reports Reuters.

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act makes it illegal for the U.S. government to spy on Americans without first getting approval from a secret federal court.

Bush acknowledged last month that he had authorized the NSA to monitor the international telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without first obtaining warrants in an effort to track al-Qaeda members and other terrorism suspects, the news agency reports.

Bush, who said the wiretapping is legal and necessary, has justified the policy as the legal act of a commander-in-chief in a time of war and points to a congressional resolution passed after the attacks of September 11, that authorized him to use force in the fight against terrorism as allowing him to order the program, reports the AP.

"It seems to me if somebody is talking to al-Qaeda, we want to know why," Bush said last week.

"I understand people's concerns about government eavesdropping. I share those concerns as well," he said.

Bush has said the eavesdropping program is being scrutinized regularly to ensure it does not infringe on civil liberties.

"I had to make the difficult decision between balancing civil liberties and on a limited basis, and I mean limited basis, try to find out the intention of the enemy," the president added.

The CCR lawsuit noted that federal law already allows the president to conduct warrantless surveillance during the first 15 days of a war and allows court authorization of surveillance for agents of foreign powers or terrorist groups, reports the AP.

Instead of following the law, Bush "unilaterally and secretly authorized electronic surveillance without judicial approval or congressional authorization," the lawsuit said.

The ACLU lawsuit, filed in Detroit in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan, targeting the NSA and Director Alexander, said its lawsuit would be filed on behalf of journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations that frequently communicate by telephone and e-mail with people in the Middle East, reports Reuters.

The lawsuit seeks a court order declaring that the spying program is illegal and ordering its immediate and permanent halt.

The ACLU said its legal complaint charges that the spying program violates Americans' rights to free speech and privacy under the First and Fourth amendments of the Constitution, the news agency reports.

The ACLU also charges that Bush exceeded his authority under separation of powers principles.

"President Bush may believe he can authorize spying on Americans without judicial or congressional approval, but this program is illegal and we intend to put a stop to it," said ACLU executive director Anthony Romero.

"The current surveillance of Americans is a chilling assertion of presidential power that has not been seen since the days of Richard Nixon," he added.

Plaintiffs in the case believe their communications are being intercepted by the NSA, and that the program is disrupting their ability to talk with sources, locate witnesses, conduct scholarship, and engage in advocacy, the ACLU said.

Plaintiffs include authors and journalists such as conservative Christopher Hitchens and Tara McKelvey, as well as James Bamford, a leading expert on U.S. intelligence and the NSA, reports Reuters.

Other plaintiffs to the suit included Greenpeace and the Council on American Relations.

Democrat Al Gore, Bush's rival in the 2000 presidential election, accused him Monday of acting illegally.

"What we do know about that pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and consistently," Gore said.

The New York Times on Tuesday reported that much of the domestic spying conducted by the NSA after the September 11, 2001, attacks was unproductive and led federal agents to dead ends or innocent Americans.