Domestic spying cases on tap today
by Kagro X
Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 09:07:34 AM PDT
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today hears two key cases on the NSA's (previously) illegal warrantless domestic surveillance programs.
How's it looking?
Here's case one:
In 2003, Room 641A of a large telecommunications building in downtown San Francisco was filled with powerful data-mining equipment for a "special job" by the National Security Agency, according to a former AT&T technician. It was fed by fiber-optic cables that siphoned copies of e-mails and other online traffic from one of the largest Internet hubs in the United States, the former employee says in court filings.
What occurred in the room is now at the center of a pivotal legal battle in a federal appeals court over the Bush administration's controversial spying program, including the monitoring that came to be publicly known as the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
[Today], a three-judge panel will hear arguments on whether the case, which may provide the clearest indication yet of how the spying program has worked, can go forward. So far, evidence in the case suggests a massive effort by the NSA to tap into the backbone of the Internet to retrieve millions of e-mails and other communications, which the government could sift and analyze for suspicious patterns or other signs of terrorist activity, according to court records, plaintiffs' attorneys and technology experts.
And where do we stand?
Neither AT&T nor the federal government has admitted even the existence of a secret room, and the Justice Department is arguing that the cases should be dismissed because their subject matter is a state secret. The communications company, meanwhile, says it is prevented from properly defending itself because of national security reasons and dismisses the employee who briefly saw the room and worked on supporting equipment as a "line technician who . . . never had access to the 'secret room' he purports to describe."
Hmm. Second case?
The second case centers on the disbanded al-Haramain charity and two of its attorneys, who say they were given -- and then forced to return -- a Treasury Department document showing that they had been the focus of NSA surveillance.
Oh! That's good, right? They actually have evidence of the spying!
Oakland lawyer Jon Eisenberg calls the case of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. George W. Bush the strangest he has ever handled. How strange? Eisenberg was required to write one of his briefs in a windowless government office, without notes or lawbooks, under the watchful eye of two federal security guards.
When he got hungry, one of the guards brought him a banana. And when he finished, a security official shredded all his drafts — and even the banana peel, Eisenberg said.
I see.
So, what exactly is at stake?
[Today's] hearing will focus only on whether the two lawsuits should be dismissed on the basis of the government's assertion of a "state secrets privilege." The outcome could determine whether the courts will ever rule on the legality of surveillance conducted by the NSA without judicial oversight between 2001 and January 2007, when the Bush administration first subjected the program to the scrutiny of a special intelligence court.
"If the courts take the position that the state-secrets privilege prevents the case from going forward, I think effectively there'll never be a decision about the legality of the program," said Cindy Cohn, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's legal director. "I think it's tremendously important for that."
Looks like we should get a fair shake, though, based on everything else that's happened. Right?
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