ACLU

More than 755,000 on US terrorist watch list

AFP
October 25, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) - - The US terrorist watch list includes more than 755,000 names and continues to grow, the US Government Accountability Office said Wednesday.

The list exploded from fewer than 20 entries before the September 11, 2001 attacks to more than 150,000 just a few months later, after the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) was created in December 2003 to keep tabs on terrorist suspects, according to the GAO, the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress.

Including known pseudonyms of suspects, the list's 755,000 names as of May 2007 represents, in fact, around 300,000 people, according to TSC estimates.

"Rendition" Film All Too Real for CIA Kidnapping Victims
October 19, 2007

Opening in theaters nationwide today, the feature film Rendition is about the CIA kidnapping of a fictional character, Anwar El-Ibrahimi. Unfortunately, the practice of extraordinary rendition is all too real.

The unlawful practice of "extraordinary rendition," abducting foreign nationals for detention and interrogation in secret overseas prisons—has been used by CIA operatives since Sept. 11, and must be stopped.

NEW YORK - A federal court today struck down the amended Patriot Act's National Security Letter (NSL) provision. The law has permitted the FBI to issue NSLs demanding private information about people within the United States without court approval, and to gag those who receive NSLs from discussing them. The court found that the gag power was unconstitutional and that because the statute prevented courts from engaging in meaningful judicial review of gags, it violated the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers.

US appeals court rejects lawsuit against warrentless domestic spying

Barry Grey
WSWS

7 July 2007

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on Friday threw out a suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the Bush administration’s program of warrentless surveillance of telephone and email communications by people residing in the United States.

In a two-to-one decision, a three-judge panel of the appeals court, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the domestic spying operation in the courts because they could not prove that they were directly affected by the program.