Wiretapping

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider blocking a constitutional challenge to the government's secret wiretapping of international phone calls and emails. At issue is whether Americans who have regular dealings with overseas clients and co-workers can sue to challenge the sweep of this surveillance if they have a “reasonable fear” their calls will be monitored. The case, to be heard in the fall, will put a spotlight on a secret surveillance program that won congressional approval in the last year of President George W. Bush's presidency.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider blocking a constitutional challenge to the government's secret wiretapping of international phone calls and emails. At issue is whether Americans who have regular dealings with overseas clients and co-workers can sue to challenge the sweep of this surveillance if they have a “reasonable fear” their calls will be monitored. The case, to be heard in the fall, will put a spotlight on a secret surveillance program that won congressional approval in the last year of President George W. Bush's presidency.

While Louisiana state police and the FBI started a wiretapping probe into the New Orleans Saints and General Manager Mickey Loomis , assistant head coach Joe Vitt called allegations that Loomis had his Superdome booth wired so he could listen to opposing coaches "ludicrous. " "It's absolutely ludicrous. It's impossible," Vitt said Tuesday. "I've never heard of it before. That's something from 'Star Wars.' When I first heard something about it being a wiretap, I thought they were talking about Sammy 'the Bull' Gravano or something.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court, after a four-year break from terrorism issues, is set to decide as soon as Monday whether to again take up constitutional challenges to George W. Bush-era anti-terrorism laws involving wiretapping and the Guantanamo prisoners. In one case, the Obama administration is asking the court to block a suit against the government's monitoring of international phone calls and emails. And in the other set of appeals, lawyers for six detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are asking the justices to make good on their promise of four years ago and give the inmates a "meaningful opportunity" to be released.

The government does not need a search warrant when it taps the phones or checks the e-mails of suspected terrorists who are outside the U.S., even if Americans may be overheard on the calls, a special intelligence court ruled in an opinion released Thursday. The decision confirms what Bush administration officials and some legal experts have long argued. Although the Constitution protects the privacy rights of Americans against "unreasonable searches and seizures," this principle does not bar U.

An ESPN report has alleged that New Orleans Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis had a device in his Superdome suite that allowed him to listen in on the game-day communications of opposing coaching staffs from 2002 through 2004. The Saints have vigorously denied the report, with team spokesman Greg Bensel calling it "1,000% false. " Writers from around the Tribune Co. will discuss which side they think is telling the truth, the Saints or ESPN's sources. Check back throughout the day for their responses and join the conversation by voting in the poll and leaving a comment of your own. Sam Farmer, Los Angeles Times I believe ESPN.

. -- The National Security Agency did not place a wiretap that reportedly intercepted phone conversations made by Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), the top U.S. intelligence official said Monday. Dennis C. Blair, the national intelligence director, declined to say which agency requested the reported wiretap and oversaw the information gleaned from Harman's conversations. Blair was speaking at the dedication of a new intelligence research facility.

The Obama administration on Friday lost its bid to halt a lawsuit charging that President George W. Bush broke the law when he authorized warrantless spying on terrorism suspects, the only such case to make it to federal court. A federal appeals court rejected the Justice Department's bid to halt the lawsuit by a now-defunct Islamic charity over warrantless wiretapping.

Residential telephone customers can sue the government for allegedly eavesdropping on their private communications in a warrantless "dragnet of ordinary Americans," a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. Lawyers for customers of AT&T and other telecommunications providers hailed the ruling for allowing the courts to decide whether widespread warrantless wiretapping violated their constitutional rights. "It's huge. It means six years after we started trying, the American people may get a judicial ruling on whether the massive spying done on them since 9/11 is legal or not," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was among those fighting for a day in court.

Re "Better tapping," editorial, June 23 The Democratic Party has once again reminded me why I registered Green Party for a dozen years before switching back to vote for Barack Obama in the primary. By capitulating to President Bush on funding the Iraq occupation and giving the telecommunications companies immunity for illegal domestic wiretapping, Democrats (with a few notable exceptions) have shown that they are not a serious or effective opposition party. I can only hope a clean sweep in November will strengthen the backbones of the party leaders enough that I won't regret my decision to rejoin the Democrats.

An ESPN report has alleged that New Orleans Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis had a device in his Superdome suite that allowed him to listen in on the game-day communications of opposing coaching staffs from 2002 through 2004. The Saints have vigorously denied the report, with team spokesman Greg Bensel calling it "1,000% false. " Writers from around the Tribune Co. will discuss which side they think is telling the truth, the Saints or ESPN's sources. Check back throughout the day for their responses and join the conversation by voting in the poll and leaving a comment of your own. Sam Farmer, Los Angeles Times I believe ESPN.

While Louisiana state police and the FBI started a wiretapping probe into the New Orleans Saints and General Manager Mickey Loomis , assistant head coach Joe Vitt called allegations that Loomis had his Superdome booth wired so he could listen to opposing coaches "ludicrous. " "It's absolutely ludicrous. It's impossible," Vitt said Tuesday. "I've never heard of it before. That's something from 'Star Wars.' When I first heard something about it being a wiretap, I thought they were talking about Sammy 'the Bull' Gravano or something.

Residential telephone customers can sue the government for allegedly eavesdropping on their private communications in a warrantless "dragnet of ordinary Americans," a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. Lawyers for customers of AT&T and other telecommunications providers hailed the ruling for allowing the courts to decide whether widespread warrantless wiretapping violated their constitutional rights. "It's huge. It means six years after we started trying, the American people may get a judicial ruling on whether the massive spying done on them since 9/11 is legal or not," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was among those fighting for a day in court.

"Die Hard" director John McTiernan was sentenced to a year in federal prison Monday for lying to the FBI ? and later to a federal judge ? regarding his role in the wiretapping case of disgraced Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano. McTiernan, 59, will remain free on bail pending an appeal of some issues in the case. If the appeal is denied, he will begin serving his sentence, authorities said. Pellicano was convicted two years ago of racketeering and wiretapping. Prosecutors presented evidence at the trial that he secretly recorded movie producer Charles Roven's phone calls on McTiernan's behalf.

Four and half years after the Bush administration was caught eavesdropping on Americans without court approval, a federal judge in San Francisco has ratified a conclusion many Americans reached long ago: that the administration exceeded its legal authority in the war on terror. But U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker's ruling does more than that. It also reminds the Obama administration, which too often has echoed Bush-era positions on national security issues, that the "state secrets privilege" can cover a multitude of abuses.

In a repudiation of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism surveillance program, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that the government violated federal law when it failed to seek warrants to spy on two lawyers working for an Islamic charity in Oregon. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker rejected assertions by both Presidents Bush and Obama that their state secrets privilege shields them from lawsuits filed by American citizens investigated under a disputed domestic spying program launched after 9/11.

President Alvaro Uribe faced a new scandal Tuesday over alleged wiretapping of political opponents and journalists, one day after he ordered the arrest of 19 present and former Colombian officials accused of signing a "devil's pact" with right-wing paramilitaries.

Former Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano and another man were sentenced to three years in prison Friday after pleading no contest to charges that they threatened a Los Angeles Times reporter in 2002. Pellicano, 65, and Alexander Proctor, 66, were charged with threatening reporter Anita Busch, who was doing investigative research on Hollywood industry figures. Busch found a dead fish with a rose in its mouth on her car's shattered windshield along with a sign reading "Stop," according to prosecutors.

Federal authorities shook the often secretive world of hedge funds with the arrests Friday of the billionaire founder of a major New York operation and five others on charges they engaged in extensive insider trading that allegedly netted more than $20 million in illicit profits. After taking the unusual step of using wiretaps in the investigation, authorities accused Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of the $7-billion hedge fund Galleon Group, two executives at California companies and three others of multiple counts of conspiracy and securities fraud.