Follow-up on the Center for Constitutional Rights suit against warrantless surveillance

i posted on the ccr suit on friday and this move by bushco is no surprise...

Four days after President Bush signed controversial legislation legalizing some warrantless surveillance of Americans, the administration is citing the law in a surprise motion today urging a federal judge to dismisss a lawsuit challenging the NSA spy program.

[...]

Justice Department lawyers are asking (.pdf) U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to toss the case, citing the new law -- which says warrantless surveillance can continue for up to a year so long as one person in the intercepted communications is reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.

[...]

The government said the new Protect America Act of 2007 requires the government to notify the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court "as soon as practicable" when somebody is being spied upon, but does not require its immediate authorization.

The government has maintained all along that electronic eavesdropping was legal, and said the newest legislation provides "an additional basis for dismissal."

The Center for Constitutional Rights, the plaintif in the lawsuit, is expected to argue today that the new law violates the Fourth Amendment's requirement that judges approve warrants for surveillance.

more to come, no doubt...

(thanks to cryptogon...)

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