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From: Yulya2/21/2009 3:06:22 PM
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"The Obama administration is simply stepping into the shoes of the Bush administration."

The Obama administration filed an emergency request with a federal appeals court Friday to stop a judge in San Francisco from allowing lawyers challenging the government's wiretapping program to see a classified surveillance document.

The document is the central evidence in the last remaining lawsuit over the legality of former President George W. Bush's 2001 order for the National Security Administration to intercept phone calls and e-mails between Americans and suspected terrorists in other nations.

The suit by Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation contends Bush violated a federal wiretapping law and constitutional restrictions on searches by authorizing the surveillance without approval from Congress or the courts.

The organization, a now-defunct charity, was inadvertently sent a document in 2004 that reportedly showed it had been wiretapped during an investigation that led to its classification as a terrorist group.

The group returned the document to the government, but Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled last month that Al-Haramain's lawyers were entitled to see it, after receiving security clearances, so they could defend the organization's right to sue. Other lawsuits over the program have been dismissed because the plaintiffs have been unable to prove that they were targets of the surveillance program.

Two Al-Haramain lawyers have passed FBI background checks, but the Justice Department has denied them security clearances, saying they did not need access to the classified material. In a Feb. 13 ruling, Walker gave the government until Feb. 27 to tell him how it would comply with his order.

On Friday, the department asked the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to intervene and prevent "imminent disclosure of highly classified information."

Jon Eisenberg, a lawyer for Al-Haramain, said he is disappointed. At least in this case, he said, "The Obama administration is simply stepping into the shoes of the Bush administration."

E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.

sfgate.com
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