Civil Rights Groups File Lawsuits Challenging Bush on NSA Wiretaps

Millions of Americans paid tribute to the Reverend Martin Luther Kind this weekend on the national holiday commemorating the civil rights leader. While Martin Luther King Day is an official federal holiday, the US government tried to break King many times while he was alive, including arresting him and him throwing him in prison as well as closely monitoring him - opening his mail and tapping his phone.

At an address in Washington DC on Monday, former Vice President Al Gore recalled the FBI's secret surveillance of Martin Luther King and called for a special prosecutor to investigate whether President Bush broke the law when he ordered the National Security Agency to conduct domestic spy operations without legally required court warrants.

* Al Gore, former Vice President, excerpt of Jan. 16, 2005
- Full transcript of speech http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Text_of_Gore_speech_0116.html

The New York Times reveals today that after the Sept. 11th attacks the NSA began sending a flood of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. This forced the FBI to send out hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips every month. According to the Times virtually all of the tips led to dead ends or innocent Americans. The NSA had collected most of the intelligence it fed to the FBU by eavesdropping on Americans making international phone calls as well as by conducting searches of phone and Internet traffic.

Meanwhile, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union are filing separate lawsuits today challenging President Bush's order for the NSA to conduct domestic spy operations without legally required court warrants.

* Shayana Kadidal, staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights.

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