FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Michael Avery, NLG President, 617-335-5023 Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, 212-679-5100, ext. 11 TARGETS OF ILLEGAL SURVEILLANCE REQUEST COURT JUDGMENT AGAINST PRESIDENT BUSH BASED ON PUBLIC RECORDS New York. March 9, 2005. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) announced that its attorneys had joined in a motion requesting a summary judgment from the United States District Court in New York against President Bush and other defendants involved in illegal electronic surveillance without judicial warrants. The summary judgment motion asserts that no trial is necessary in the case because Administration officials have already made sufficient public admissions regarding the program for the court to rule that the President’s actions are illegal and violate the Constitution. The NLG is cooperating with other attorneys in the representation of lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), who are the plaintiffs in the case. The CCR lawyers allege that the government is likely to have listened to their conversations with international clients and others who have been targeted by the government. NLG President Michael Avery, one of the attorneys handling the case, summarized the legal claims in the brief filed today. “The President simply has no power under our Constitution to conduct this surveillance and his actions violate the constitutional guarantee of separation of powers. What he has admitted to doing constitutes a criminal offense – a felony under federal law.” The Guild also warned that the reported agreement between Republican Senators and the White House to amend federal statutes to authorize electronic surveillance for successive 45 day periods without court orders would result in a law that would be unconstitutional. NLG President Michael Avery explained, “When the President fails to seek judicial warrants before his agents listen to the conversations of American citizens, he violates the Fourth Amendment guarantee that only judges and not FBI or NSA agents can order such invasions of privacy. Congress cannot repeal the Bill of Rights by passing a statute – that was the very purpose of putting these rights in the Constitution.” The National Lawyers Guild is a bar association founded in 1937 and comprising over 6,000 members and activists in the service of the people. Its national office is headquartered in New York and it has chapters in nearly every state, as well as over 100 law school chapters. The Guild has a long history of litigating to protect the constitutional rights of people in this country. ###