Wiretap Issue Leads Judge to Warn of Retrial in Terror Case
By Eric Lichtblau, New York Times
A federal judge warned Tuesday that if the government did not allow lawyers to review classified material on possible wiretapping of an Islamic scholar convicted of inciting terrorism, she might order a new trial for him.
The unexpected development is the latest legal complication involving the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program, which has produced challenges from criminal defendants as well as civil lawsuits against the government and phone carriers.
Lawyers for Ali al-Timimi, an Islamic scholar in Northern Virginia sentenced to life in prison in 2005 for inciting his followers to commit acts of terrorism, maintain that he may have been illegally wiretapped by the agency as part of its program of eavesdropping without warrants that was approved by President Bush soon after the Sept. 11 attacks.
![[VIDEO]: Bush Legacy in 8 Minutes by Keith Olbermann on ‘Countdown’](https://impeachforpeace.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/olbermannmca.jpg)
There’s new life in the accountability movement! The People v Bush: One Lawyer’s Campaign to Bring the President to Justice and the National Grassroots Movement She Encounters Along the Way (Chelsea Green) has just been published. Author Charlotte Dennett will be in Cambridge January 20 at the Harvard Bookstore at 7 pm to discuss it and the following day, January 21, at 7 p.m. in New York City at the 92nd St Y. Vincent Bulgiosi is flying all the way from the west coast and will join Naomi Wolf in helping her launch the book on the 21st.