Yesterday Bush asked "Congress to promptly pass legislation providing additional authority for the Terrorist Surveillance Program, along with broader reforms in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."
The Washington Post wrote: "The president's appeal for congressional action to strengthen the legal underpinnings of the National Security Agency's surveillance program ran into roadblocks even as he spoke. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Spector (R-Pa.) suspended efforts to draft legislation until at least next week after Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) proposed new amendments and a bipartisan group of senators urged more hearings."
At about the same time Judge Garr M. King of the Federal District Court in Portland, Oregon became the third federal judge to allow a case against the government on this issue to proceed. The charity, Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, claims it has been warrantlessly eavesdropped on. Others do this too in similar cases, but in this case the charity has proof. It turns out as part of another case, the government released a classified document confirming that the charities communications with its lawyers were actually intercepted. This provides them with standing to sue, a difficult hurdle for the other cases to overcome.
The government had asked Judge King to dismiss the lawsuit on national security grounds under the so-called state secrets privilege. The state secrets privilege is considered a drastic measure, and it has been used only about 60 times in the past. Yesterday's ruling was Judge King "resoundingly rejecting" the governments claim because "the NSA program is hardly secret anymore". Glenn Greenwald has the best summary of the decision's significance.
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