CCR Argues in Court Government Cannot Keep Secret Whether It Spied on Guantánamo Attorneys

CCR Argues in Court Government Cannot Keep Secret Whether It Spied on Guantánamo Attorneys | Press Release

October 7, 2009, New York, NY – Oral arguments in the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) warrantless surveillance case Wilner v. National Security Agency (NSA, will take place Friday, October 9, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. in the Ceremonial Courtroom of the U.S. Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street in New York. CCR and co-counsel will be arguing that the executive agency must disclose whether or not it has records related to wiretapping of attorney conversations without a warrant. It is an appeal of the government’s Glomar assertions from litigation seeking information about NSA Program surveillance of attorneys representing detainees at Guantánamo.

“Our work with our clients may have been deeply compromised by illegal surveillance carried out by the last administration,” said Shayana Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney of the CCR Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative. “The new administration has no legal basis for refusing to come clean about any violations of attorney-client privilege by the NSA.”

The case is a FOIA lawsuit on behalf of 24 attorneys, including several CCR staff attorneys, law professors and partners at prominent international law firms, who believe they may have been the subjects of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program authorized by the prior administration shortly after September 11, 2001. CCR, the Institute of Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center and the Chicago law firm Butler Rubin Saltarelli & Boyd filed the case to demand that the government comply with requests to turn over all records related to the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping of attorneys who represent detainees at Guantánamo. The case will be argued by Kathryn Sabbeth, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.

For more information on Wilner v. NSA, click here.

WHAT: Oral Argument in Wilner v. NSA

WHEN: Friday, October 9, 2009 at 10:00 a.m. (with several cases on the docket)

WHO: CCR Attorney Shayana Kadidal, Prof. Kathryn Sabbeth

WHERE: U.S. Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, Ceremonial Courtroom, 9th Floor, New York, New York 10007-1312

CONTACTS: Jen Nessel, (212) 614-6449, jnessel@ccrjustice.org
David Lerner, (212) 260-5000, dlerner@riptideonline.com

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. Visit Center for Constitutional Rights.