EFF v Department of Justice. (Hearing just 2 weeks ago.) Just an FYI.

[chill_wind]

July 23, 2007
Thursday Hearing on Secret Orders for Domestic Spying

Justice Department Withholds Records on Electronic Surveillance

Washington, D.C. - On Thursday, July 26, at 11 a.m., the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will argue for the release of court orders that supposedly authorize the government's highly controversial electronic domestic surveillance program that intercepts and analyzes millions of Americans' communications.


(see full text)

WHAT:
EFF v. Department of Justice

WHEN:
11 a.m.
Thursday, July 26

WHERE:
United States District Court for the District of Columbia
Courtroom 25A
333 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001


http://www.eff.org/news/

For more on EFF's lawsuit:
http://www.eff.org/flag/07403TFH



Doesn't provide any further details about the hearing that was to have taken place, but seems like it might be worth watching...

[chill_wind]

1. Can anyone add anything? n/t

[chill_wind]

2. Here's what this is about. The FISA FIX. and the Secret FISC orders. Nobody's interested?

Based on a filing as recently as February 2007, trying to get at what happened in the Secret FISC court orders Bush & Gozales are trying to keep suppressed from public knowledge and are refusing subpoenas from Congress on. The ones they've recently claimed legalized what they are doing. (January 2007)

In other words, this tries -- or WAS trying--to get behind the curtain and possibly to the heart itself of the present FISA Fix SHAM.

Before Congress rushed in to fix things up...

The hearing was to have taken place just a couple weeks ago.
I'm incredibly curious as to how it went.



FOIA Litigation: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Orders

EFF v. Department of Justice, 07-403-TFH (D.D.C.) filed Feb. 27, 2007

On January 17, 2007, the Bush Administration announced that it had let the shadowy Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) review the NSA's domestic spying program, which was previously operated without any judicial authorization whatsoever. This Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case seeks disclosure of the FISC's secret orders.

While claiming that the FISC has now legalized the program, the Administration has refused to let anyone else see the court orders and confirm key details about what they permit. In addition to its refusal to disclose copies of the FISC orders in response to EFF's FOIA request, the Department of Justice has similarly refused to make the orders available to the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to a subpoena.

Oral argument in the case is scheduled for July 26, 2007, before Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

http://www.eff.org/flag/07403TFH/