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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. The group also filed a motion with the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, requesting that proceedings and rulings on the constitutionality of the FAA be made public.

On a conference call with reporters Thursday afternoon, ACLU lawyers said they had filed suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of an array of plaintiffs. This included a panoply of human rights organizations, prominent defense attorneys, and journalists like Chris Hedges and Naomi Klein of The Nation.

One of the most difficult aspects of challenging secret surveillance law is proving standing to sue, as the National Security Agency does not make a habit of notifying targets that they are being wiretapped. The ACLU therefore hopes to demonstrate that its plaintiffs are harmed, and their First Amendment activities chilled, by the very existence of a law whose “effect and… main purpose,” in the words of attorney Jameel Jaffer, “is to give the government unfettered access to the international communications of US citizens and residents.”

Read more: ACLU, others greet Bush FISA bill signing with new lawsuit

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