Legal News

Crossed Wires: Judge Deems U.S. Surveillance Program Illegal

By Ashby Jones

San Francisco federal judge Vaughn Walker has garnered a fair amount of press in recent months for his role in the Prop. 8 case — he’s the presiding judge in the constitutional challenge to California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

But Walker’s in the news today for a different reason: a ruling he made on Wednesday declaring that that the government illegally wiretapped communications between an Islamic charity and its U.S. lawyers. Click here for the WSJ story; here for the NYT story; here for Walker’s opinion.

According to the WSJ story, by Justice Department reporter Evan Perez, the ruling challenges the legality of the Bush administration’s now-defunct Terrorist Surveillance Program. Along the way, it could open the way for plaintiffs to seek damages from the government for violating restrictions outlined in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Under the program, the government monitored the international e-mail messages and phone calls of U.S. citizens without court approval, even though FISA required warrants.

The case stems from a 2006 lawsuit filed by the Oregon branch of the Saudi al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. The plaintiffs learned they were being wiretapped by the National Security Agency when the government accidentally turned over to them logs of intercepted calls.

On Wednesday, Judge Walker said the plaintiffs had established “aggrieved person” status and shown that “they were subjected to warrantless domestic national security surveillance.”

And how is the ruling going to play out in our nation’s capital? It’s unclear, though Perez writes that the case puts the Obama administration in a bind, trying to shield a program of which President Barack Obama himself previously had been critical.

The Obama administration tried to block the al-Haramain case, claiming that allowing it to continue would potentially expose intelligence methods. The Bush administration had made similar arguments.

But Judge Walker on Wednesday rejected the so-called “state-secrets” argument, saying that in this case it was trumped by the requirements of the FISA law.

Jon Eisenberg, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said his clients would review their options, which he had previously told the court included seeking damages in the “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

The Justice Department said Wednesday it was reviewing the judge’s ruling, but that it was likely to appeal. Anthony Coppolino, Alexander Haas and Andrea Gacki represented the DOJ in the case.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 01, 2010 (boomark / email).