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Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Federal appeals court allows domestic spying to continue pending appeal
Alexis Unkovic at 4:35 PM ET

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit [official website] ruled [text, PDF] Wednesday that the US government can continue to operate its domestic surveillance program [JURIST news archive; US DOJ fact sheet, PDF] pending appeal of US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's August 17 ruling [PDF text; JURIST report] that the government's program is unconstitutional. Taylor originally ordered the shutdown of the surveillance program, but held last Thursday that the government could continue domestic surveillance for one more week [JURIST report] while the issue was appealed to the Sixth Circuit.

AP has more.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit [complaint, PDF; ACLU materials] on behalf of journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations having "a well-founded belief that their communications are being intercepted by the NSA" in order to challenge the use of warrantless wiretaps by the National Security Agency [official website] to intercept communications of suspected terrorists.