Stephen Lee
Two American attorneys who were subjected to warrantless NSA surveillance have filed a brief on Thursday asking a Federal judge to declare such eavesdropping illegal. A hearing is set for September 1 that will likely force the Obama administration to endorse an intelligence program that Obama and key cabinet members unambiguously promised to end.
The case represents the most mature and comprehensive challenge of Bush-era domestic intelligence operations to date. The two attorneys, Wendell Belew and Asim Gafoor, were defense attorneys during a Federal terrorism case against the Oregon-based Islamic charity Al-Haramain. During the discovery phase of the case, Belew and Asim received logs of classified NSA surveillance against them that had been inadvertently included in dump of government evidence documents.
FBI retrieved the NSA documents from the attorneys, but the inadvertent disclosure let the domestic surveillance cat out of the bag.
The emptywheel blog pointed out that the opening lines of the brief filed yesterday are quotes from President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, underscoring the Obama administrations flagrant flipfloppery on intelligence reform.
“Warrantless surveillance of American citizens, in defiance of FISA, is unlawful and unconstitutional.” President Barack Obama, December 20, 2007
“We owe the American people a reckoning.” Attorney General Eric Holder, June 13, 2008
The remainder of the 41-page brief offers details–unclassified, of course–of how two Americans were subjected to illegal surveillance not authorized by constitutionally guaranteed warrants.
Civil liberties and intelligence watchers will be anticipating the September 1 hearing with bated breath
[...] ini, dan mengingat peristiwa-peristiwa baru-baru ini, terutama penangkapan saudara kita di Oregon (semoga Allah membuatnya teguh dan membebaskannya), saya telah memutuskan untuk merekam dan [...]