Ruling Blocks Challenge to Wiretapping
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 — A federal appeals court said today that secrecy laws forced it to exclude critical evidence about the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program from being used by an Islamic charity in a lawsuit even though the mere existence of the program could no longer be considered a “state secret.”
The complex ruling was a victory for the Bush administration and signaled trouble for civil rights groups that are trying to show that the eavesdropping program was unconstitutional and to hold telecommunications companies liable for carrying it out.
The Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a charity in Oregon, had perhaps the best evidence of anyone that it had been a target of the wiretapping program, based on a top secret document mistakenly given to the group in 2004.
But the ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, found that evidence about the document could not be introduced in court because it fell under the “state secrets” privilege invoked by the government. The court, reversing a lower court ruling, said the trial judge had made “a commendable effort to thread the needle” but that its final ruling in allowing the evidence was flawed.
However, the appeals court split off from its ruling a separate claim made by more than 40 groups against the telecommunications companies, and it has yet to rule on whether those lawsuits were covered by the state secrets privilege as well.
A lawyer for the group leading that part of the lawsuit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in an interview that he was heartened by the appeals court’s clear rejection of the government’s claim everything involved in the eavesdropping program should be considered a state secret. That could bode well for the remaining piece of the case, said the lawyer, Kevin Bankston.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 — A federal appeals court said today that secrecy laws forced it to exclude critical evidence about the National Security Agency’s domestic eavesdropping program from being used by an Islamic charity in a lawsuit even though the mere existence of the program could no longer be considered a “state secret.”
The complex ruling was a victory for the Bush administration and signaled trouble for civil rights groups that are trying to show that the eavesdropping program was unconstitutional and to hold telecommunications companies liable for carrying it out.
The Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a charity in Oregon, had perhaps the best evidence of anyone that it had been a target of the wiretapping program, based on a top secret document mistakenly given to the group in 2004.
But the ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, found that evidence about the document could not be introduced in court because it fell under the “state secrets” privilege invoked by the government. The court, reversing a lower court ruling, said the trial judge had made “a commendable effort to thread the needle” but that its final ruling in allowing the evidence was flawed.
However, the appeals court split off from its ruling a separate claim made by more than 40 groups against the telecommunications companies, and it has yet to rule on whether those lawsuits were covered by the state secrets privilege as well.
A lawyer for the group leading that part of the lawsuit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in an interview that he was heartened by the appeals court’s clear rejection of the government’s claim everything involved in the eavesdropping program should be considered a state secret. That could bode well for the remaining piece of the case, said the lawyer, Kevin Bankston.
(Continued here.)
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