President Bush's signature had barely dried on the FISA Amendments Act, which the Senate approved Wednesday, when the American Civil Liberties Union announced that it would mount a constitutional challenge to the new law, claiming that it violates the First and Fourth Amendments....

Lawyers have also filed a motion with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, explained the ACLU's Melissa Goodman, making four requests for transparency. In the event of proceedings that might yield significant interpretations of the FAA, or rulings on its constitutionality, the motion ask that the FISC notify the public, that it allow ACLU to file briefs and participate in the arguments, that it require the government to file a public version of its own legal briefs, and that the Court issue a public version of any ruling. "Otherwise," said Goodman, "we will literally never now how the FISA court interprets the new law.

The idea that we could have a secret body of Constitutional Law is more Kafka than America."