The ACLU and others filed suit today claiming Congress and the Bush White House overstepped their Constitutional authority, violating the rights of millions of Americans when they passed legislation granting immunity to telcos accused of collaborating in illegal spying. The case is being made in federal court in the Northern District of California.
The suit is filed on behalf of a dozen plaintiffs, including renowned Chicago journalist Studs Terkel, former California Congressman Tom Campbell, journalist Robert Scheer and actor Richard Belzer. They challenge what they call the unlawful collaboration of major telecommunications companies with the Bush Administration’s warrantless dragnet surveillance of electronic communications and records.
“Under our constitutional system, Congress and the Executive Branch do not determine whether actions taken by the Executive violate basic constitutional rights,” said Harvey Grossman, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois and co-lead counsel for the cases combined in the San Francisco court. “Since Marbury v. Madison, we have recognized that only a court can determine the meaning of the Constitution – it is simply not a power granted to the Congress and the President.”
This filing is in response to passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments of 2008 which mandate that courts dismiss any cases against AT&T or other telecommunications companies if the Attorney General chooses to file a secret certification attesting that the executive branch told the phone companies that the surveillance was lawful. Under the immunity provisions, the federal court does not determine whether the spying was in fact legal, but only that the representation of legality was made by the executive branch. The Attorney General has filed such a certification in these cases.
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