Civil Liberities

[Capt_Nemo]

1] Groups Urge Secret Appeals Court to Reject Expanded Spying Powers
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EPIC today joined with a coalition of civil liberties groups to urge a
secret appeals court to reject a government bid for broadly expanded
powers to conduct "national security" surveillance on U.S. citizens.
In a "friend of the court" brief filed with the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR), the groups said that expanding
such powers would jeopardize fundamental constitutional interests,
"including the First Amendment right to engage in lawful public
dissent, and the warrant, notice, and judicial review rights
guaranteed by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments."

At issue in the case is whether new Justice Department surveillance
rules seeking to use looser foreign intelligence standards to conduct
criminal investigations in the United States are constitutional and
permissible under the USA PATRIOT Act adopted by Congress after the
September 11 terrorist attacks. The civil liberties brief urges the
FISCR to uphold a decision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court, which in May unanimously rejected the government's bid for
expanded powers. In its decision, the intelligence court documented
abuses of "national security" warrants by both the Bush and Clinton
Administrations, including serious errors in approximately 75
applications for foreign intelligence surveillance (see EPIC Alert
9.16).

At a hearing last week, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
which has oversight of the Justice Department, also condemned the
government's position. "We need to do our work well and ensure that
domestic surveillance is aimed at true national security targets and
does not simply serve as an excuse to violate the Constitutional
rights of our own citizens," said Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy
(D-VT). "The abuses of the past are far too fresh simply to surrender
to the executive branch unfettered discretion to determine the scope
of these changes."

After the lower court's decision was made public in late August, the
civil liberties groups notified the FISCR that they intended to file a
brief. The groups had hoped to submit their brief before the appeals
court met to review the case, but the secret court met on September 9
and only the government was allowed to present arguments. EPIC joined
the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Democracy and
Technology, Center for National Security Studies, Electronic Frontier
Foundation, and the Open Society Institute in submitting today's
brief.

The civil liberties amicus brief is available at:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/fisa/FISCR_amicus_brief.pdf

Background information on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,
including the current controversy, is available at:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/fisa/

The text of the USA PATRIOT ACT is available at:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html


From an email.........................

Rick...

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory."
-W. Edwards Deming