The National Security Agency's controversial domestic surveillance program faces its first major court test today before a veteran federal judge in Detroit.
In January, groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations as well as several individuals, who said they feared the government was spying on them, filed a 60-page lawsuit seeking to have the warrantless wiretapping program declared unconstitutional. Among the individuals is James Bamford, author of two books on the NSA.
Under the program, launched after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the NSA listens in on phone calls and obtains e-mails into and out of the U.S. involving suspected terrorist affiliates. The program bypasses the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was created after government spying scandals in the 1970s to approve warrants in some intelligence- and terrorism-related investigations.
The suit in Detroit, like one filed in New York by the Center for Constitutional Rights, asserts that the NSA's eavesdropping program has violated free-speech and privacy rights and has had a chilling effect on the communications of potential surveillance targets.
None of the plaintiffs have offered proof they were spied on. Rather, they maintain that the simple existence of the program has impeded their ability to perform their jobs as journalists and lawyers.
"The program is causing concrete and specific injury to plaintiffs and others," the ACLU said in a motion in March, asking U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor to declare the program illegal and to order its immediate halt.
A brief by Ann Beeson and other ACLU attorneys said the program was disrupting plaintiffs' ability "to talk with sources, locate witnesses, conduct scholarship, engage in advocacy and engage in other activity protected by the 1st Amendment."
The ACLU attorneys contend that because President Bush and several Cabinet members, including Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, have publicly acknowledged the existence of the program, Taylor has sufficient evidence to rule on the legality of the program without further fact-finding.
The Justice Department sharply disagrees and seeks dismissal of the cases in Detroit and New York on the grounds that they violate the "state secrets" doctrine.
