By David Kravets, Wired Magazine
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 dismiss a lawsuit challenging the NSA spy program.
The lawsuit was brought by lawyers defending Guantanamo Bay prisoners. The lawyers and others alleged the threat of surveillance is chilling their First Amendment rights of speech, and their clients’ right to legal representation.
Justice Department lawyers are asking 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 motion is set to be heard in federal court in San Francisco this afternoon. THREAT LEVEL will be there.
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.”