Documents Would Increase Public Understanding of Warrantless Wiretapping Program
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
media@aclu.org
WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union, the
National Security Archive and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
today filed papers urging a federal judge to compel the Justice Department and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation to disclose legal and policy memos relating
to the National Security Agency’s (NSA) warrantless wiretapping program. Two
years after the media’s disclosure that the NSA was secretly intercepting the
phone calls and emails of people in the United States without a warrant in
direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the
government continues to withhold documents that could shed light on its legal
justification for the program.
“The government’s refusal to disclose
even its legal justifications for the NSA’s illegal surveillance program is
particularly disturbing,” said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU’s
National Security Project. “These documents would shed desperately needed light
on the government’s decision purposely to violate the law, and then to keep that
decision - and the justification for it - completely secret.”
The papers
filed today are part of a combined Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
brought by the ACLU, the National Security Archive, and EPIC. The ACLU and the
Archive submitted FOIA requests for documents about the warrantless wiretapping
program in December 2005. The government largely denied the requests and the
ACLU and the Archive filed a lawsuit in February 2006 to enforce their rights
under FOIA. That lawsuit was combined with a similar lawsuit brought by EPIC.
The Justice Department has responded by releasing only documents that were
already available to the public and asking the court to permit it to keep the
rest of the NSA records secret.
In September 2007, U.S. District Court
Judge Henry Kennedy found the government’s broad claims of secrecy an
“insufficient” justification for its refusal to turn over certain records and
ordered the Justice Department to provide more substantial reasons for
withholding the documents. The government filed more papers in October and
November 2007 reasserting its broad, unsupported claims of secrecy.
“When
it comes to national security policies - whether the NSA’s illegal spying
program, or the unlawful kidnapping, torture, and detention of prisoners - this
administration has fought public disclosure and oversight at every turn,” said
Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “The
government’s blanket secrecy claims are dangerous, and are totally inconsistent
with our democratic ideals. National security policies should not be made
entirely behind closed doors, without public debate.”
The ACLU, the
Archive and EPIC today urged Judge Kennedy to review the documents the
government refuses to release and to determine whether the government should be
able to withhold records that would undoubtedly inform the ongoing congressional
and public debate as to whether FISA should be permanently amended to
essentially sanction the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program and radically
expand the executive branch’s power to conduct surveillance without meaningful
judicial oversight.
The brief is available online at:
www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/33268lgl20071218.html
Other documents
relating to the FOIA lawsuit are available online at:
www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/30022res20060207.html
Attorneys in the
consolidated FOIA cases are Bargzie, Goodman and Jameel Jaffer of the ACLU;
Meredith Fuchs of the National Security Archive; Marc Rotenberg of EPIC; and Art
Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.