The suit names Ashcroft, Mueller as defendants

DETRIOT, July 31 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Six U.S. civil rights advocacy groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday, July 30, challenging the USA Patroit Act, which gives unlimited authorities to secretly spy on citizens.

It names U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller as defendants and asks a federal court to overturn the FBI's power, under the Act, to secretly obtain a variety of information about ordinary Americans, including medical records, reading habits, religious affiliations and Internet surfing.

The lawsuit calls for abolishing a section in the law preventing those served with its orders from telling anyone that the FBI demanded information, even if the information poses no risk to national security.

It was litigated by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of six advocacy and community groups from across the country whose members and clients believe they are currently the targets of investigations because of their ethnicity, religion and political associations.

The plaintiffs are the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), American-Arab-Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor (MCA), Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services, and the Islamic Center of Portland, Masjed As-Saber.

The lawsuit seeks to have the 215 Section of the law declared unconstitutional on the ground that it violates the privacy and free speech rights of Americans.

"Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act does not enhance that security, but instead violates the privacy rights of all Americans and creates a legal cover for intrusive investigations of people who are not suspected of planning or carrying out criminal acts, " CAIR Board Chairman Omar Ahmed said in an el-mail sent to IslamOnline.net.

"The abuses inherent in this legislation are also unnecessary because the government already had the power to investigate criminal activity," he added.

Ahmad noted that many libraries nationwide have reacted to Section 215 by shredding documents and notifying patrons that their records are at risk.

Civil liberties advocates and Justice Department officials said the suit was the first to challenge the constitutionality of the law, months after increasingly sharp political debate in Washington and around the country over the act.

Justice Department officials said they planned to review the lawsuit and had no immediate comment.

The Department has defended the act, which Congress passed overwhelmingly six weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, as a crucial weapon in the war on terrorism.

But a new report by internal investigators at the Justice Department published by the New York Times on July 21, identified dozens of cases in which employees have been accused of serious civil rights and civil liberties violations, with cases involving the enforcement of the USA Patriot Act.

The inspector general’s report said that from December 16 through June 15, his office received 1,073 complaints "suggesting a Patriot Act-related" abuse of civil rights or civil liberties.

The report suggested that hundreds of the accusations were easily dismissed as not credible or impossible to prove.

But of the remainder, 272 were determined to fall within the inspector general's jurisdiction, with 34 raising "credible Patriot Act violations on their face."

The report said that during the six-month period that ended on June 15, the inspector general's office had received 34 complaints of civil rights and civil liberties violations by department employees that it considered credible, including accusations of beatings of Muslim and Arab immigrants in federal detention centers.