Mystery document in wiretap suit sent to Seattle for safekeeping
Tim Fought
Associated press
Seattle Post Intelligencer
__________________
Portland, Orrgon (US):
A secret document in an Oregon lawsuit challenging President Bush's domestic wiretapping program will be held in a secure facility in Seattle while the judge and lawyers try to figure out how to keep it under wraps in Portland.
U.S. District Judge Garr King decided this week that the document couldn't be held securely in a federal courthouse in Portland, and shouldn't be held at the local office of the FBI, a defendant in the case.In a telephone conference that offered few clues about the document, King said it would go to a secure facility at the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle, but he hoped it eventually could be edited and held in Oregon as the suit progresses.
A government lawyer said, however, the document would be so black with redactions that it couldn't be understood.
A transcript of the telephone conference was made available to The Associated Press by Steven Goldberg, a civil rights attorney who filed the lawsuit last February.
The lawsuit alleges that the National Security Agency illegally wiretapped electronic communications between a local chapter of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, both attorneys in Washington, D.C.
Mar 23, 2006
Tim Fought
Associated press
Seattle Post Intelligencer
__________________
Portland, Orrgon (US):
A secret document in an Oregon lawsuit challenging President Bush's domestic wiretapping program will be held in a secure facility in Seattle while the judge and lawyers try to figure out how to keep it under wraps in Portland.
U.S. District Judge Garr King decided this week that the document couldn't be held securely in a federal courthouse in Portland, and shouldn't be held at the local office of the FBI, a defendant in the case.In a telephone conference that offered few clues about the document, King said it would go to a secure facility at the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle, but he hoped it eventually could be edited and held in Oregon as the suit progresses.
A government lawyer said, however, the document would be so black with redactions that it couldn't be understood.
A transcript of the telephone conference was made available to The Associated Press by Steven Goldberg, a civil rights attorney who filed the lawsuit last February.
The lawsuit alleges that the National Security Agency illegally wiretapped electronic communications between a local chapter of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, both attorneys in Washington, D.C.
Mar 23, 2006
