Documents cited in federal court by a defunct Islamic
charity may provide the first detailed evidence of U.S. residents
being spied upon by President Bush's secret eavesdropping program,
according to the organization's lawsuit and a source familiar with the
case, the Washington Post will report in Thursday papers, RAW STORY has learned. The full story is now online. Excerpts:
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The al Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi organization that once
operated in Portland, Ore., filed a description of classified
government records in a lawsuit Tuesday and immediately asked a judge
for a private review.
According to a source familiar with the case, the records indicate
that the National Security Agency intercepted several conversations in
March and April of 2004 between al Haramain's director, who was in
Saudi Arabia, and two U.S. citizens in Washington who were working as
lawyers for the organization.
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The government intercepted the conversations without court
permission and in violation of the law, al Haramain claims in its
lawsuit. It contends that eavesdropping on the conversations bypassed
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that requires
the government to show probable cause that a U.S. residents is an
agent of a terrorist group or foreign government and obtain a warrant
from the secret FISA court before monitoring that person's calls.
Experts on FISA, while emphasizing that they are unfamiliar with
the specifics of the al Haramain case, said they question whether a
FISA judge would agree to allow surveillance of conversations between
U.S. lawyers and their client under the general circumstances
described in the lawsuit.
