WHAT:

EFF Teleconference on First Unitarian v. NSA



WHO:

Cindy Cohn, EFF Legal Director

Mark Rumold, EFF Staff Attorney

Shahid Buttar, Executive Director, Bill of Rights Defense Committee

Gene Hoffman, Chairman of Calguns Foundation

Rev. Rick Hoyt, First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles



WHEN:

Tuesday, July 16

11am PT/2pm ET



Press Release

Broad Coalition of Organizations Team Up with EFF for

Freedom of Association Lawsuit



Nineteen organizations including Unitarian church groups,

gun ownership advocates, and a broad coalition of

membership and political advocacy organizations filed suit

against the National Security Agency (NSA) today for

violating their First Amendment right of association by

illegally collecting their call records. Attorneys from

the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and

representatives from the plaintiffs' groups will brief

reporters on this groundbreaking case in a teleconference

at 11am PT/2pm ET. Reporters should call +1 855 756-7520

and use access code 22217#.



"The First Amendment protects the freedom to associate and

express political views as a group, but the NSA's mass,

untargeted collection of Americans' phone records violates

that right by giving the government a dramatically detailed

picture into our associational ties," said EFF Legal

Director Cindy Cohn. "Who we call, how often we call them,

and how long we speak shows the government what groups we

belong to or associate with, which political issues concern

us, and our religious affiliation. Exposing this

information â especially in a massive, untargeted way over

a long period of time â violates the Constitution and the

basic First Amendment tests that have been in place for

over 50 years."



At the heart of First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v.

NSA is the bulk telephone records collection program that

was confirmed by last month's publication of an order from

the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). The

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) further confirmed

that this formerly secret document was legitimate and part

of a broader program to collect all major

telecommunications customers' call histories. The order

demands wholesale collection of every call made, the

location of the phone, the time of the call, the duration

of the call, and other "identifying information" for every

phone and call for all customers of Verizon for a period of

three months. Government officials further confirmed that

this was just one of series of orders issued on a rolling

basis since at least 2006.



"People who hold controversial views â whether it's about

gun ownership policies, drug legalization, or immigration â

often must express views as a group in order to act and

advocate effectively," said Cohn. "But fear of individual

exposure when participating in political debates over

high-stakes issues can dissuade people from taking part.

That's why the Supreme Court ruled in 1958 that membership

lists of groups have strong First Amendment protection.

Telephone records, especially complete records collected

over many years, are even more invasive than membership

lists, since they show casual or repeated inquiries as well

as full membership."



"The First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles has a proud

history of working for justice and protecting people in

jeopardy for expressing their political views," said Rev.

Rick Hoyt. "In the 1950s, we resisted the McCarthy

hysteria and supported blacklisted Hollywood writers and

actors, and we fought California's 'loyalty oaths' all the

way to the Supreme Court. And in the 1980s, we gave

sanctuary to refugees from civil wars in Central America.

The principles of our faith often require our church to

take bold stands on controversial issues. We joined this

lawsuit to stop the illegal surveillance of our members and

the people we serve. Our church members and our neighbors

who come to us for help should not fear that their

participation in the church might have consequences for

themselves or their families. This spying makes people

afraid to belong to our church community."



In addition to the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles,

the full list of plaintiffs in this case includes the Bill

of Rights Defense Committee, Calguns Foundation,

Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch, People for the American

Way, and TechFreedom.



EFF also represents the plaintiffs in Jewel v. NSA, a class

action case filed on behalf of individuals in 2008 aimed at

ending the NSA's dragnet surveillance of millions of

ordinary Americans. Last week, a federal court judge

rejected the U.S. government's latest attempt to dismiss

the case, allowing the allegations at the heart of the suit

to move forward under the supervision of a public federal

court.

Addeddate 2013-07-16 22:24:37 Identifier EffTeleconferenceOnFirstUnitarianV.Nsa