Obama Admin.: Toss Wiretap Lawsuit

National Security Cited in Bid to Stop Lawsuit Over Bush White House's Warrantless Surveillance

(CBS/AP)  Attorney General Eric Holder says a lawsuit in San Francisco over warrantless wiretapping threatens to expose ongoing intelligence work and must be thrown out.

In making the argument, the Obama administration agreed with the Bush administration's position on the case but insists it came to the decision differently.

A civil liberties group criticized the move Friday as a retreat from promises President Barack Obama made as a candidate.

Holder's effort to stop the lawsuit marks the first time the administration has tried to invoke the state secrets privilege under a new policy it launched last month designed to make such a legal argument more difficult.

Under the state secrets privilege, the government can have a lawsuit dismissed if hearing the case would jeopardize national security.

The Bush administration invoked the privilege numerous times in lawsuits over various post-9/11 programs, but the Obama administration recently announced that only a limited number of senior Justice Department officials would be able to make such decisions. It also agreed to provide confidential information to the courts in such cases.

Under the new approach, an agency trying to keep such information secret would have to convince the attorney general and a panel of Justice Department lawyers that its release would compromise national security.

Holder said that in the current case, that review process convinced him "there is no way for this case to move forward without jeopardizing ongoing intelligence activities that we rely upon to protect the safety of the American people."

The lawsuit was filed by a group of individuals who claimed the government illegally monitored their communications. To proceed with the case, Holder said, would expose intelligence sources and methods.

In its filing, the government stated that the lawsuit "squarely puts at issue whether and to what extent the Government has utilized certain intelligence sources and methods after the 9/11 attacks to detect and prevent further terrorist attacks.

"The 'dragnet' allegations made by the Shubert plaintiffs are similar to those asserted in Jewel v. NSA, No. 09-cv-4373-VRW, and, as in Jewel, the [Director of National Intelligence] and the [National Security Agency] have again demonstrated that the disclosure of the evidence necessary to address these allegations would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security and, therefore, that the privileged information must be excluded from this case.

"In addition," the filing continued, "because disclosure of the privileged information would be necessary for plaintiffs to establish their standing and to litigate any claim in any further proceedings, the Court should grant summary judgment for the United States and Government Defendants as to all claims against all parties.”

Documents:
Gov't Motion to Dismiss/Summary Judgment
A.G. Holder Memo on State Secrets Privilege
Exhibit: Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair
Exhibit: Director of National Security Agency Keith Alexander

Holder said U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who is handling the case, was given a classified description of why the case must be dismissed so that the court can "conduct its own independent assessment of our claim."

The attorney general said the judge would decide whether the administration had made a valid claim and "we will respect the outcome of that process."

That is a departure from the Bush administration, which resisted providing specifics to judges handling such cases about what the national security concerns were.

Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco that is pursuing a similar lawsuit against the government, called Holder's decision "incredibly disappointing."

"The Obama administration has essentially adopted the position of the Bush administration in these cases, even though candidate Obama was incredibly critical of both the warrantless wiretapping program and the Bush administration's abuse of the state secrets privilege," said Bankston.

[payback108]

Why would obama stop now he can listen too EVERYONES phone calls

[bann65]

Bush was a wonderful president I totally 100% agree. He was a non-egotistical caring caring guy. Now we have an ARROGANT, narcisstic, uncaring, image-seeking guy who knows nothing. He does not care about us. He is a money-spending animal and even worse, a guy who signed a bill behind closed doors for us to kill babies overseas.

[stuart-johns2]

Too bad he was'nt around when you were born.

[timdgrim]

by daddycrc-2009....BUSH WAS A GREAT PRESIDENT

________
You Funny Daddy! That's the studpidest 5 words ever put together other than 'Iraq has Mass Destruction Weapons'.

[Ms_enza]

"Let's reelect Bush and Cheney."

HA! More stupid, eh? Never use superlatives... it's a challenge to some.

[daddycrc-2009]

Is everyone out there STUPID, If we had all this BULL during wwll D DAY NEVER would have happened.. I don believe in big gov, BUT WE HAVE TO HAVE some security,
BUSH WAS A GREAT PRESIDENT. At least he was NOT A COWARD LIKE CLINTON, CLINTON WAS AN ASS AND A COWARD

[hologram5]

Right, he was the greatest Baboon maybe. They didn't call him chimp for nothing.

[babooph]

Obama has likely been told he could wind up like JFK...

[wwudiver]

bush III, now available in literate!

[mnbound]

And we want the govt to control our healthcare? We want to give them the power to say what kinds of care we can buy (no cadillac plans? Why not if I have the money?) They will control our lives. Employers will drop health insurance- just like they have dropped retiree health insurance forcing everyone to Medicare. Medicare won't let you stay in the hospital more than 100 consecutive days for the same condition. You have to get out and be out for at least 60 days before you can go back in. You only get so many days in a nursing home - then it's up to you to pay. You might have to sell your house (my grandmother did) and spend all of your money until you can be desitute and get on Medicaid.

Is this the type of healthcare we want? Are these the people we want in charge of our healthcare?

I say give us vouchers and let us buy our own.

[th9876]

Just more evidence that Obama is not interested in change. What a huge disappointment he has been. I don't really care anymore if he is a one term president. He pretty much deserves it.

[kesac4650]

CBS already told us back during the election that the FISA Court had authorized those wiretaps.
No one has taken any of our Rights. Read the Constitution before you quote it. Also, read the Constitution before you believe CBS. They will tell you a different and contradictory version of the same story every single day.

[wyodutch]

Don't blame Obama for the erosion of the once-sacred Bill of Rights... and for that matter, don't blame Bush either.
.
We're to blame... you and me. We're the ones who... in our post-911 fear and paranoia, did nothing, said nothing as the government instituted the biggest power-grab in the history of the Republic.
.
James Madison warned us that... "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
.
Fellow citizens, we are traitors to the freedoms that our Founding Fathers gave us. I fear if Paine, Franklin and Washington came back today... they'd put us to the bayonet.

[ToolMangler1]

In your words, you are oking full disclosure of all wiretapping as it unfolds, Hows this for a headline "FBI,CIA,NSA and local fuzz are currently wiretapping 'wyodutchs' phone in an ongoing investigation into his 'Commentary practices' that appear to be in favor of terrorism" Right??? You wanted full disclosure, well, there it is...