The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed two separate lawsuits challenging the Bush administration’s domestic eavesdropping program on Tuesday, Jan. 17. These civil rights groups contend that this program was used to illegally and unconstitutionally monitor communications by Americans with connections to the Middle East. Included amongst the ACLU plaintiffs is Political Science Prof. Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and co-director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Diamond said he was teaching his students about “horizontal accountability” — the idea that different agencies of government should hold others accountable for following the Constitution and the law — right around the time the lawyers from the ACLU called.

Diamond said his lawyers told him they “had strong reason to believe” he had been among those monitored under the surveillance program.

“It appears the ever-widening scope of the domestic surveillance program can get to the point where it’s monitoring people who are very distant from terrorists,” Diamond said, adding that phone calls and e-mails to particular countries are detected in the vast data-mining trove. Based on the extent of contact he has had with people from these countries, or who have had contact with him, Diamond said his lawyers believed it was very likely that some of his phone calls — and especially his e-mails — have been intercepted.

As a political scientist working to advance democratic development worldwide, Diamond regularly communicates with human rights workers, opposition activists and civil society leaders in Asia and the Middle East concerning human rights abuses and political developments.

Diamond said he considers his work contingent on his ability to communicate freely with people around the globe.

In his official statement for the ACLU, Diamond wrote “widespread, warrantless surveillance will inhibit my ability to gather information for research and advocacy and to have unimpeded exchanges with scholars around the world. It will weaken our ties with people in these countries, ties we need to cultivate and expand, not constrict, if we want to foster democratic change and win the war on terror.”

He said he fears that if these individuals have reason to believe that their communications are being intercepted, they may stop sharing information that could be beneficial to the United States’ long-term national interest.

According to Diamond, it is important not to assume that “the U.S. is necessarily the paragon of all democratic virtue.”

In his official statement he wrote “we cannot fight for freedom abroad by surrendering it at home. If we want to be effective in promoting freedom and democracy in the world, we have to be faithful to our democratic principles. One reason why the United States is held in such low esteem in these parts of the world today is because we are seen as hypocritical.”

The ACLU suit represents the first major court challenge to President George W. Bush’s domestic surveillance program, which permits the National Security Administration (NSA) to monitor telephone and e-mail exchanges without a court warrant. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has defended the program as part of the broad powers granted by Congress in the post-Sept. 11 Patriot Act. Both the ACLU and Diamond reject this claim.

“I do not believe Bush had any deliberate desire to violate the Constitution,” Diamond said. “But I think Congress did not grant — and did not intend to grant — the scope of authority the president has claimed. And more importantly, many members of Congress insist they had no intention of granting this degree of executive discretion when they passed the Patriot Act. The point is, at a minimum, there is a very serious dispute on whether this is constitutional and the only way to settle the dispute is by taking it to court.”

Scott McClellan, Bush’s press secretary, has referred to this case and ones like it, as “frivolous lawsuits that do nothing to help enhance civil liberties to protect the American people.”

Diamond said he deeply resents this response and that critical questions about the “excessive expansion of executive power” and the protection of civil liberties lie at the heart of the lawsuit.

“To call the lawsuit frivolous or partisan I think is unfounded,” he said. “We can’t be apathetic about it simply because we face a threat of international terrorism. I believe if there’s one lesson in history, it’s that we must be extremely vigorous and vigilant in defending democracy.”

Diamond further explained that the lawsuit is not driven by partisan motives.

“I am not on the left side of the political party,” he said. “I very strongly agree with the president’s goals of promoting democracy in the world. There is a lot Bush is trying to do that I support. I give him credit for that.”

Sophomore Gabriel Winant, vice president of the Stanford Democrats, said he believes that Congress did not authorize federal spying, based on Gonzales’ contradictory justifications that the resolution authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan also authorized domestic spying and that the reason the Bush administration never explicitly requested such authorization from Congress was that they did not believe legislators would agree.

“With a Republican Congress apparently unwilling to make the administration answer for its gross violation of the most basic constitutional principles, this lawsuit is the next and appropriate step to expose the extraordinary paranoia of the Bush’s administration and clear the air of its pungent whiff of authoritarianism,” Winant said.

Other members of the Stanford Democrats said they are also pleased about the two lawsuits.

“The government had every opportunity to obtain warrants and eavesdrop legally, but instead decided to violate the Fifth Amendment,” said sophomore Debashish Bakshi. “I am glad that the Center for Constitutional Responsibility and the ACLU are taking civil action against the Bush administration. However, it will take much more than lawsuits to impel substantive change in U.S. surveillance policy. Greater and more active congressional and judicial oversight is both badly missed and needed.”

Representatives of the Stanford College Republicans could not be reached.

According to sophomore Margot Isman, former president of the Stanford Democrats, the lawsuits were an inevitable result of the Bush administration’s illegal plan to spy on Americans.

“People of our country are sick of being lied to by the Bush Administration, and I hope that their latest attempt to subvert our rights in the name of national security will be brought to justice,” Isman said.

Some students, however, said they do not anticipate that the lawsuits will be successful.

“I believe that the case against the domestic spying program has merit, as it is a clear violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” said sophomore and Stanford Democrats board member Bernard Fraga. “However, the political pressure on any judge who takes this case would be immense, even if this were not the Bush administration. Given the limited success of cases brought against this Administration, even when the constitutional abuses seem clear, I cannot foresee a victory for the ACLU or the Center for Constitutional Rights in their suits.”