1] Groups Urge Secret Appeals Court to Reject Expanded Spying Powers =======================================================================
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.
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