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Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 09:45:02 -0500
To: TSCM-L <TSCM-..._at_googlegroups.com>
From: "James M. Atkinson" <jm..._at_tscm.com>
Subject: Saudi Group Alleges Wiretapping by U.S.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/01/AR2006030102585.html
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
Thursday, March 2, 2006; A01
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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