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ACLU fights to release NSA wiretap
papers
UPI
Friday May 25, 2007
The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are
fighting to get U.S. electronic surveillance papers released to
the public.
The ACLU announced Wednesday that it, the National Security Archive
and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, had presented new
legal papers asking a U.S. judge to force the Justice Department
"to release documents pertaining to the National Security Agency's
warrantless surveillance program."
The ACLU cited former U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Comey
as saying last week that the Justice Department had already come
to the conclusion in March 2004 that the NSA program was unlawful.
"As Mr. Comey's testimony makes clear, the NSA's warrantless
surveillance program was illegal, and even the Justice Department's
own attorneys reached that conclusion," said Jameel Jaffer,
director of the ACLU's National Security Project. "Full disclosure
about this blatantly illegal program is imperative, particularly
because President Bush continues to assert the authority to resurrect
the program at any time."
On Wednesday, the three human rights organizations requested Judge
Henry H. Kennedy of the U.S. District Court for the District of
Columbia "to deny the government's motion and to review the
documents himself to determine whether the documents should be released,"
the ACLU statement said.
The ACLU said Comey had acknowledged that Bush had re-approved
the NSA electronic surveillance program in 2004 without a signature
from the Justice Department. The ACLU said the president had taken
the action although "both Comey and then-Attorney General John
Ashcroft determined that the program was illegal."
U.S. human rights groups have stepped up their efforts to impose
greater oversight on the Bush administration's domestic electronic
surveillance activities since the Democrats took control of Congress
in the midterm elections last November.
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