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Date: Fri, 03 Mar 2006 12:32:16 -0500
To: TSCM-L <TSCM-..._at_googlegroups.com>
From: "James M. Atkinson" <jm..._at_tscm.com>
Subject: Saudi Group Alleges Wiretapping by US
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Saudi Group Alleges Wiretapping by US
The Washington Post - Mar 2, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/01/AR200...
Saudi Group Alleges Wiretapping by U.S.
Defunct Charity's Suit Details Eavesdropping
By Carol D. Leonnig and Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Documents cited in federal court by a defunct Islamic charity may provide
the first detailed evidence of U.S. residents being spied upon by President
Bush's secret eavesdropping program, according to the organization's lawsuit
and a source familiar with the case.
The al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a Saudi organization that once operated
in Portland, Ore., filed a description of classified government records in a
lawsuit Tuesday and immediately asked a judge for a private review.
According to a source familiar with the case, the records indicate that the
National Security Agency intercepted several conversations in March and
April 2004 between al-Haramain's director, who was in Saudi Arabia, and two
U.S. citizens in Washington who were working as lawyers for the
organization.
The government intercepted the conversations without court permission and in
violation of the law, al-Haramain asserts in its lawsuit. It contends that
eavesdropping on the conversations bypassed the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that requires the government to show probable
cause that a U.S. resident is an agent of a terrorist group or foreign
government and to obtain a warrant from the secret FISA court before
monitoring that person's calls.
Experts on FISA, while emphasizing that they are unfamiliar with the
specifics of the al-Haramain case, said they question whether a FISA judge
would agree to allow surveillance of conversations between U.S. lawyers and
their client under the general circumstances described in the lawsuit.
In October 2001, Bush ordered the NSA to begin monitoring some telephone
calls and e-mails of U.S. residents and contacts abroad if one party was
suspected to have links to terrorism. The government has said that FISA did
not allow it to move quickly enough to track suspected terrorists after the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Several targets of government terrorism prosecutions have challenged the
warrantless eavesdropping in courts nationwide since news reports in
December revealed the existence of the secret surveillance program. Most of
those challenges have centered on suspicion that prosecutors used
information from warrantless wiretaps to build cases in terrorism
investigations.
This lawsuit appears to be the first to cite the government's own documents
of intercepted conversations and e-mails as the reason to suspect NSA
surveillance. The government has acknowledged that it targeted Iyman Faris,
who pleaded guilty in 2003 to plotting to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, for
surveillance under the NSA program. Several convicted members of a group
described by prosecutors as Virginia jihad network have said they believe
they were targets of surveillance. The government has said it either has no
evidence to support the allegation or is still investigating.
Yesterday, Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said authorities
will review al-Haramain's filing. He declined to comment further.
The lawsuit says that a director of al-Haramain, Suliman al-Buthe, once
operated the nonprofit group in Ashland, Ore., but relocated to Saudi Arabia
because of U.S. government pressure.
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control froze the
foundation's U.S. assets in February 2004, pending an investigation, and
designated it a terrorist organization in September 2004, citing ties to
Osama bin Laden. Al-Haramain was indicted in February 2005 on charges of
conspiring to defraud the United States in connection with a scheme to
funnel money to Chechen fighters. The charges were later dropped because the
Oregon branch of the organization had shut down.
The lawsuit contends that al-Buthe's conversations with people in the United
States were illegally intercepted. In May 2004, the suit says, government
officials provided al-Buthe-- apparently by accident -- copies of
conversations he had with attorneys Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor.
Later in 2004, the FBI demanded the records back, according to a source
familiar with the case.
Tom Nelson, an attorney for al-Haramain who filed the suit, declined
yesterday to confirm the existence of any classified records or tangible
evidence buttressing the suit.
However, court records show, Nelson filed a motion to place material under
seal as part of the suit Tuesday, and made a formal request to the judge
overseeing the case to review the unspecified documents privately.
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