Blatant Criminal Behavior by the Bush Administration
Did you know that a couple of American attorneys, Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, are the only people who can prove they have standing in a suit charging the government of illegally spying on American citizens without a FISA warrant? And how do they know? They were passed a "top secret" document during disclosure in a case when the government was considering putting their client on the US Treasury watch list for Islamic charities that the government believed are funding terrorists. The document provided positive proof that they were being spied upon by the government because the document contained a record of private phone calls they had with their client.
http://www.pacificviews.org/weblog/archives/002857.html NSA Snooped on Lawyers Knowing Spying Was Illegal, Suit Charges
Ryan Singel 07.10.07
The government's surveillance of two attorneys challenging the NSA's warrantless wiretapping of Americans took place partly during a period in which the top secret program operated without the approval of the Bush administration's own Justice Department, according to a newly filed court document.
The lawsuit, known as al-Haramain vs. United States, is the only one of more than 50 challenges to the program where the plaintiffs claim to have proof that they were the targets of the warrantless spying, based on a top secret document that had been briefly provided to them in a government paperwork snafu.
For that reason, the lawsuit was already seen as the most resistant to government efforts to protect the program. The allegation that some of the surveillance took place when the program wasn't authorized by the Justice Department may further complicate the government's defense.
"Part of our surveillance occurred when the Attorney General advised the president that the program was illegal," says plaintiff attorney Jon Eisenberg. "That deprives them of the defense they didn't know it was illegal."
Belew knew things were weird when the FBI showed up at his house in 2004 and demanded he give back the document and forget that he ever saw it. When he realized it was part of the NSA spying scandal, he and Ghafoor decided to sue.
more at:
http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/07/haramain_appeal
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