An American human rights group has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a legal challenge the controversial domestic surveillance program authorized by President George W. Bush.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is asking for reconsideration of a lower court's decision, which found that several organizations and individuals could not sue the government over the surveillance program because they could not prove they had targets of the program.The program allows the monitoring without a court warrant of international phone calls and emails with one end in the United States. The journalists, scholars, attorneys and national advocacy organizations who challenged the law claimed the program compromised their ability to do their jobs and disrupted their ability to communicate with sources and clients.The appeals court dismissed the case because the plaintiffs could not state with certainty that they had been wiretapped by the government's National Security Agency. The ruling did not decide whether the program was lawful.The ACLU appeal heard Wednesday asks the Supreme Court to determine whether the plaintiffs have the right to bring the lawsuit and whether Bush has the power to engage in intelligence surveillance activities in the United States that Congress has prohibited.“Innocent people who are harmed by illegal government surveillance should be able to challenge that surveillance in court,” said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project.The Supreme Court is expected to decide late this year whether it will hear the ACLU's appeal.
