ACLU Files Lawsuit Challenging FISA

Slashdot posts links to coverage of the federal lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed just hours after Bush signed the expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act into law.

By passing the FISA Amendments Act, Congress has given the executive branch of the U.S. government the power to order Google, AT&T and Yahoo to forward all email, phone calls and text messages to them where one party to any conversation is thought to be overseas.

The ACLU is suing on behalf of journalist and human rights groups. While longtime foreign correspondent Christopher Hedges admits that surveillance is nothing to to journalists, he also says

"There is a lot of monitoring that goes on especially when you are overseas. But this creates a further erosion in my ability to work as a journalist."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, at the forefront of yet continuing lawsuits agains the nation's telecoms, will challenge the provision in the bill that gives retroactive amnesty to telecoms that are currently being sued for helping the government spy on Americans without having warrants.

"We are also preparing a new case against the government for its warrantless wiretapping, past, present and future," said EFF senior staff attorney Kevin Bankston, who said the details were being withheld to keep the element of surprise.

See details in Wired.