US rights group asks judge to stop wiretap program

NEW YORK, Sep 6 (Reuters) A US civil liberties group asked a federal judge on Tuesday to halt a contentious domestic spying program that the US government argues is essential to national security.

In a hearing in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights asked US District Judge Gerard Lynch to stop the National Security Agency's secret telephone eavesdropping program, which was leaked to the media last year.

President George W Bush has acknowledged authorizing the NSA shortly after the September. 11 attacks to monitor international phone calls and e-mails of US citizens without obtaining warrants.

Bush said the program was aimed solely at suspected terrorists and their allies.

Lawyers for the civil rights group, who filed their lawsuit in January, say the program violates freedom of speech, protections against unreasonable searches and constitutional checks on presidential power.

In court yesterday, lawyers for the group argued that the spying program was unconstitutional because Bush did not seek approval from Congress. They said existing law requires that all such wiretaps be court approved.

Government lawyer Anthony Coppolino asked the judge to dismiss the case. He said barring the program would be ''intruding on the president's power to undertake terrorist surveillance.'' The judge, who reserved his ruling, questioned the government's arguments that the president had the power to order the program without legislative approval.

''This is serious stuff that you are suggesting where you say that because the president is the commander in chief . . . that gives him the power to override Congress,'' he said. ''Even Julius Caesar didn't get to bring his armies back into Rome.'' Coppolino responded that such surveillance was ''as close to the modern day battlefield as you can get. Where is al Qaeda today . . .

and what are they planning to hit us?'' In a similar case in Detroit last month, a federal judge ruled that the warrantless surveillance program was unconstitutional.

The issue may ultimately end up in the US Supreme Court, legal experts say.

REUTERS DH PM0547