[Reader-list] U.S. discovers violations in surveillance program

[Sagar Sanyal]

This is in relation to the article "U.S. discovers violations in
surveillance Program" by James Vicini (
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE53F4GH20090416 ) posted
earlier today on the reader-list.
The Vicini article ends on a slight note of optimism regarding the Obama
administration’s willingness to ‘work with the court to address the problem’
of the lack of public accountability in the US domestic surveillance
program.
The following link to a piece by Glen Greenwald tempers that optimism. It
discusses the Obama administration’s espousal of a doctrine of ‘sovereign
immunity’ to shield dubious cases of surveillance from the courts. The
doctrine, unprecedented even by the Bush administration’s assertion of
executive supremacy, asserts that the PATRIOT Act bars any lawsuits of any
kind for illegal government surveillance unless there is ‘willful
disclosure’ of the illegally intercepted communications

"New and worse secrecy and immunity claims from the Obama Dept Of Justice"

By Glen Greenwald

Monday April 6, 2009
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/06/obama/
Sagar.