Secret wiretapping case goes to court in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO -- After years of wrangling over legal procedures, the lawyer for a defunct Islamic charity laid out his case Wednesday that former President George W. Bush's secret wiretapping program was illegal - an argument that an Obama administration attorney refused to discuss.

"May the president of the United States break the law in the name of national security? ... We're asking this court to say, 'no,' " Jon Eisenberg, lawyer for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, told a federal judge in San Francisco.

Neither the president's constitutional powers as commander in chief nor Congress' authorization to use military force against terrorists after Sept. 11, 2001, entitled Bush to override a 1978 law requiring court approval for electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists, Eisenberg argued.

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/alharamain/index

Previously...

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2339554/posts

Al-Haramain Foundation in News Again, For Obvious Reasons!
COUNTERTERRORISMBLOG.org ^ | September 14, 2009 02:53 PM | By Animesh Roul
Posted on September 14, 2009 1:35:17 PM PDT by Cindy

SNIPPET: “According to a report prepared by Pakistani police (the Crime Investigation Department), the AHF has funded approximately USD 15 million to Jihadi groups in Pakistan for carrying out terror attacks. These funds mostly went to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which is responsible for numerous suicide strikes in the last couple of years and also blamed for the assassination of Benezir Bhutto.”

SNIPPET: “Till 2004, the United States had designated at least thirteen AHF branch offices operating in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, in many African countries and in the United States. But in 2008, the US Treasury Department has designated (under Executive Order 13224) AHF’s world-wide operation, including operations in Saudi Arabia.”

(Excerpt) Read more at counterterrorismblog.org ...

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