Appeals court overturns ruling, says government wiretapping was OK

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/08/wiretapping-islamic-group-lawsuit-appeals-court.html

A federal appeals court Tuesday threw out a lawsuit by lawyers for an Islamic group that charged the federal government had illegally wiretapped them.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the government had legal immunity from the lawsuit filed by lawyers for Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a now-defunct charity that federal agents said was a terrorist group.

The ruling overturns a 2010 decision by a San Francisco federal judge against the wiretapping program. That ruling awarded the group’s lawyers who had been wiretapped a total of $40,800 and required the government to pay Al-Haramain’s $2.5 million legal fees.