L'administration de Bush opposée aux États-Unis allez au devant le vendredi d'un effort d'éplucher en arrière un couvercle de secret au-dessus de son programme domestique d'écoute clandestine d'anti-terrorisme, que les critiques disent viole sur l'intimité et les droites. Dans un classement avec la cour de surveillance d'intelligence étrangère, qui est elle-même secrète et surveille le programme, les États-Unis Le département de justice a indiqué que la cour devrait rejeter une demande par l'union américaine de libertés civiles de révéler ses actes légaux au centre de la discussion au-dessus du programme.

Il a indiqué que la cour n'a eu aucune autorité pour commander un tel matériel déclassé, l'ACLU n'a eu aucune base pour classer sa demande avec la cour, et cela l'accordant compromettrait le programme de surveillance.

“The public disclosure of the documents the ACLU requests would seriously compromise sensitive sources and methods relating to the collection of intelligence necessary for the Government to conduct counterterrorism activities,” the department said in its filing.

The ACLU said keeping the rulings secret would hamper political debate over the government’s surveillance authority.

“This debate should not take place in a vacuum. The public has a right to know, at least in general terms, what kinds of surveillance the court authorized and what kinds of surveillance it disallowed,” Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a statement.

Following an order by the court in January, the administration placed under its supervision the program begun earlier by U.S. President George W. Bush of wiretapping conversations between foreign terrorism suspects and Americans.  

The Democrat-led Congress in August passed legislation that authorized the program for six months, but Democrats who say the law went too far have vowed to revise it at the earliest opportunity.

The ACLU filed its request to declassify court findings on the program as part of multiple efforts to contest it. The organization wants released the court’s January order as well as the administration’s original request to the court.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has issued a subpoena to the White House and other agencies for records on the program’s justification, but it has been rebuffed. The committee’s Democratic chairman, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, has said he considers the administration in contempt, but Congress has taken no action.

The ACLU is due to file its response to the government briefing on September 14.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2007-09-01T023817Z_01_N31267917_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-WIRETAPPING.xml&pageNumber=0&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2

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