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Wednesday Hearing in Government Fight to Silence Warrantless Wiretapping Case

By richard

San Francisco - On Wednesday, July 15, at 10:30 a.m., a federal judge in San Francisco will hear arguments in the government's motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, a case from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) challenging dragnet government surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans.

The Justice Department moved to dismiss the case in April, arguing that litigation over the warrantless wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets" -- essentially repeating the arguments made by the Bush Administration in its attempts to block lawsuits over the illegal spying. The Justice Department also claims that the U.S. possesses "sovereign immunity" and cannot be held accountable for illegal surveillance under any federal statutes.

In Wednesday's hearing, EFF will argue that the lawsuit cannot be dismissed based on the government's blanket secrecy assertion, as made clear in previous court decisions concerning NSA spying and the CIA's special rendition program, and that the government is not immune against suit for violating federal wiretapping statutes.

For more information about attending the hearing, please contact press@eff.org.

WHAT:
Jewel v. NSA hearing on the government's motion to dismiss

WHEN:
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
10:30 a.m.

WHERE:
450 Golden Gate Ave., Courtroom 6
San Francisco, CA 94102

For more on Jewel v NSA: http://www.eff.org/cases/jewel

Contact:

Rebecca Jeschke
Media Relations Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
press@eff.org

Full post as published by Electronic Freedom Foundation - Deep Links on July 13, 2009 (boomark / email).