Posted by Jonathan Adler:
Justice Defends Wiretaps, Invokes State Secrets (Again):
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_04_05-2009_04_11.shtml#1239109931
From [1]the San Francisco Chronicle:
The Obama administration is again invoking government secrecy in
defending the Bush administration's wiretapping program, this time
against a lawsuit by AT&T customers who claim federal agents
illegally intercepted their phone calls and gained access to their
records.
Disclosure of the information sought by the customers, "which
concerns how the United States seeks to detect and prevent
terrorist attacks, would cause exceptionally grave harm to national
security," Justice Department lawyers said in papers filed Friday
in San Francisco.
Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a lawyer for
the customers, said Monday the filing was disappointing in light of
the Obama presidential campaign's "unceasing criticism of Bush-era
secrecy and promise for more transparency."
As Glenn Greenwald [2]notes here, the Justice Department also asserted
a broad claim of sovereign immunity in seeking to dismiss the suit.
References
1. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/06/BARP16TJOQ.DTL
2. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/06/obama/
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