In a very significant development, yesterday a federal appeals court ruled that our lawsuit challenging warrantless wiretapping can proceed. The law that we’re challenging, the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) of 2008, is the most far-reaching surveillance law ever enacted by Congress. It gives the National Security Agency (NSA) virtually limitless power to spy on Americans' international phone calls and emails. It allows the NSA to collect those communications en masse, without a warrant, without suspicion of any kind, and with only very limited judicial oversight. Needless to say, the law has dramatic implications for Americans' privacy rights.
By Barbara Flynn Currie, Illinois House of Representatives, Majority Leader at 2:08pm
As we near the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we can expect to see a number of retrospective pieces in print and broadcast offering commentary on changes to America in the decade since that shocking day.
By Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU at 1:55pm
As I noted in a previous post, the two Bush administration surveillance memos we obtained last Friday are very heavily redacted. They’re interesting nonetheless.
The first memo, written by Office of Legal Counsel lawyer John Yoo in November 2001, contends that the president has authority as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces to disregard the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a statute that “purports” (Yoo’s word) to regulate government surveillance. It also contends that Congress doesn’t have the power to regulate the president’s authority to gather intelligence for national security purposes. And it contends that intelligence gathering in support of military operations “does not trigger constitutional rights against illegal searches and seizures.” These are radical and insupportable claims, but they’re consistent with the claims that Yoo made in other OLC memos.
