Civil rights groups ask to end warrantless surveillance program

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http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/16041767.htm

SVEN GUSTAFSON
Associated Press

DETROIT - Eight civil rights groups and other organizations filed a brief Friday urging a federal appeals court to reinstate a lower court ruling declaring the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program illegal.

The friend-of-the-court brief was filed in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, groups representing Arab-, Asian- and Latin-American citizens, and other organizations.

The 24-page filing argues that warrantless surveillance has historically infringed upon the free-speech rights of civil rights organizations and says there is a need for congressional and judicial checks and balances.

"In their absence, intelligence powers inevitably turn from foreign foes toward domestic political opponents, from real enemies of the nation onto those whose views the executive branch disdains," wrote lawyers Saul A. Green, of Detroit, and Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., Jonathan Hafetz and Aziz Z. Huq, of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University...

ON THE NET

6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov

Taylor's ruling: http://www.mied.uscourts.gov/eGov/taylorpdf/06%2010204.pdf

Information on the case from the ACLU: http://www.aclu.org/nsaspying

National Security Agency: http://www.nsa.gov

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