nehemiah
June 13th, 2006, 3:43:26 PM
we could tell you why the program was legal, but then we'd have to kill you. :guy:
DETROIT, June 12 — A National Security Agency program that listens in on international communications involving people in the United States is both vital to national security and permitted by the Constitution, a government lawyer told a judge here today in the first major court argument on the program.
But, the lawyer went on, addressing Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the Federal District Court, "the evidence we need to demonstrate to you that it lawful cannot be disclosed without that process itself causing grave harm to United States national security."
The only solution to this impasse, the lawyer, Anthony J. Coppolino, said, was for Judge Taylor to dismiss the lawsuit before her, an American Civil Liberties Union challenge to the eavesdropping program, under the state secrets privilege. The privilege can limit and even extinguish cases that would reveal national security information, and it is fast becoming one of the Justice Department's favorite tools in defending court challenges to its efforts to combat terrorism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/washington/12cnd-nsa.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1150171200&en=ef01ee5b43fc6a56&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin
DETROIT, June 12 — A National Security Agency program that listens in on international communications involving people in the United States is both vital to national security and permitted by the Constitution, a government lawyer told a judge here today in the first major court argument on the program.
But, the lawyer went on, addressing Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the Federal District Court, "the evidence we need to demonstrate to you that it lawful cannot be disclosed without that process itself causing grave harm to United States national security."
The only solution to this impasse, the lawyer, Anthony J. Coppolino, said, was for Judge Taylor to dismiss the lawsuit before her, an American Civil Liberties Union challenge to the eavesdropping program, under the state secrets privilege. The privilege can limit and even extinguish cases that would reveal national security information, and it is fast becoming one of the Justice Department's favorite tools in defending court challenges to its efforts to combat terrorism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/washington/12cnd-nsa.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1150171200&en=ef01ee5b43fc6a56&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin