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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: US Rights Groups Ask Courts To End Domestic Spying DETROIT (Reuters) - Civil liberties groups on Thursday asked federal courts to halt the Bush administration's controversial program of domestic eavesdropping, saying it violated the privacy and free speech rights of U.S. citizens. The requests for court-ordered injunctions filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Detroit and by the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York were an extension of legal challenges the two groups had filed in January. Both groups said their most recent actions were prompted by indications that Republican senators were working with the White House to draft a law that would allow eavesdropping on some communications to and from the United States without a warrant. Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee have proposed creating a new panel to oversee the spy program while allowing wiretaps involving suspected terrorists to proceed without court clearance for up to 45 days. "In America, no one is above the law, not even the president," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement. "The president's allies in Congress are preparing to cover up his illegal program, while others in Congress are standing on the sidelines. When the president breaks the law, Congress should not be giving him a get-out-of-jail free card." The ACLU filed a lawsuit in January against the National Security Agency on behalf of scholars, attorneys, journalists and nonprofit groups that regularly communicate by phone and e-mail with people in the Middle East. 'ILLEGAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL' The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan also named NSA Director Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander as a defendant. Separately, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which has provided legal aid to people detained or interrogated in Washington's declared war on terrorism, filed a parallel suit in a federal court in New York challenging the wiretapping program. A CCR lawyer said on Thursday that U.S. officials had already disclosed enough to prove to a federal judge that the NSA wiretapping involving U.S. citizens was unconstitutional. "We can file this aggressive motion because we have proof that the spying program is illegal," said CCR staff lawyer Shayana Kadidal. "The bottom line is the defendants have incriminated themselves -- President Bush admitted that he authorized and oversaw an illegal and unconstitutional program." The ACLU took a similar approach with its request that federal Judge Anna Diggs Taylor decide in its favor, saying U.S. officials had conceded recent wiretapping had skirted the requirements of a 1978 surveillance law. Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush secretly authorized the NSA to listen in on some international phone calls and e-mail involving Americans. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has declined to say how many U.S. citizens have had their communications tapped. Larry Diamond, a Stanford University professor who advised the U.S. government on Iraq policy in 2004, was among those who filed sworn statements on Thursday saying they believed their phone calls and e-mail had been intercepted by the NSA. The program discouraged contact with overseas dissidents since they feared that anything they said could be leaked back to their own governments by U.S. officials, Diamond said. "I believe that the program inhibits the exchange of information and ideas among advocates of democratic reform, the victims of human rights abuses and defenders of human rights," Diamond said in his statement. A representative for the Justice Department, which said the initial lawsuits were without merit, had no immediate comment. The ACLU said in its filing that government lawyers had told the group they would oppose the request for summary judgment.
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