By Kenneth J. Theisen, 8/17/07
On August 16th, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) scored
a minor victory in its challenge to the Bush regime’s secret wiretapping of
Americans. The Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISC) required the Bush regime to respond to an ACLU
request for orders and legal papers discussing the scope of the government’s
authority to engage in the secret wiretapping of Americans. According to the
FISC’s order, the ACLU’s request “warrants further briefing,”
Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU stated, “Disclosure
of these court orders and legal papers is essential to the ongoing debate about
government surveillance. We desperately
need greater transparency and public scrutiny.
We’re extremely encouraged by today’s development because it means that,
at long last, the government will be required to defend its contention that the
orders should not be released.”
The ACLU filed the request with the FISC following the
Democrat-controlled Congress’ recent passage of the so-called “Protect
America Act of 2007.” That law
vastly expands the Bush administration’s authority to conduct warrantless
wiretapping of Americans’ international phone calls and e-mails and any
communications that are routed through the U.S. To justify passing this unconstitutional
legislation, the Bush regime and supportive members of Congress made repeated
and veiled references to orders issued by the FISC earlier this year which supposedly
made it harder to deter terrorist acts. They claimed that the law was necessary
to give the regime the power to defend Americans. This claim has been made by the regime every
time it wants a new law to further erode our Constitutional liberties.
The Director of the ACLU’s National Security Project Jameel
Jaffer argued, “These court orders relate to the circumstances in which
the government should be permitted to use its profoundly intrusive surveillance
powers to intercept the communications of U.S. citizens and residents. The
debate about this issue should not take place in a vacuum. It’s imperative that
the public have access to basic information about what the administration has
proposed and what the intelligence court has authorized.”
The Bush regime has significantly increased surveillance
activities of Americans and others over the past six-and-a-half years. We have written about these activities
frequently on this site. After September
11, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to institute a
program of warrantless wiretapping inside the United States in violation of the
4th amendment of the Constitution and various other laws. That NSA program was kept secret until
revealed by the New York Times a year-and-a-half ago. But the full extent of
this massive spy program is still kept secret by the regime. This secrecy allows the regime to further
expand its powers through new laws such as the one just passed by the compliant
Congress.
In January 2007, just days before an appeals court was to
hear the government’s appeal from a judicial ruling that had found the NSA
program to be illegal in a case brought by the ACLU, Attorney General Gonzales
announced an about-face. He stated that
the NSA spy program would be discontinued. Gonzales explained that the change
was made possible by “secret” FISC orders issued on January 10, 2007, which he
characterized as “complex” and “innovative.” Those orders
are among the documents recently requested by the ACLU.
Since January 2007, government officials have spoken
publicly about the “secret” January 10 orders in congressional testimony, to
the media and in legal papers. But the
orders have remained secret during this entire time. Officials have also
indicated that the FISC issued other orders in spring 2007 that restricted the
administration’s surveillance activities. House Minority Leader John Boehner
stated that the FISC had issued a ruling prohibiting intelligence agents from
intercepting foreign-to-foreign calls passing through the United States. This
perception that the FISC had issued orders limiting the regime’s surveillance
authority was used by Congress as an excuse to pass the new legislation
expanding the government’s surveillance powers. Yet the orders have remained
secret and we are told we must trust our leaders that they will do what is in
our interests. How many times have I
heard that one before?
The ACLU is seeking release of all information in those
judicial orders and legal papers that the court determines to be unclassified
or improperly classified. It is not clear whether the administration will
comply with the latest court order or appeal. Or maybe they will come up with
another law legalizing their illegal activities as they have repeatedly done in
the past. We will continue to report on
developments in this and other cases challenging the Bush regime.