Secret call log at heart of challenge to domestic wiretapping

SAN FRANCISCO -- In open court and legal filings it's referred to simply as "the Document."

Described by those who have seen it as a National Security Administration log of calls intercepted between an Islamic charity and its American attorneys, it is at the heart of what legal experts say may be the strongest case against the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program.

Attorney Jon Eisenberg represents the now-defunct U.S. arm of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a prominent Saudi Arabian charity that was shut down by authorities in that kingdom after the U.S. Treasury Department declared it a terrorist organization that was allegedly funding al-Qaida.

He and his colleagues sued the U.S. government in Portland, Ore.'s federal court. Unlike dozens of other lawyers who have sued alleging similar violations of civil liberties, Eisenberg's team had what it claimed to be unequivocal proof: the Document.

In 2004, as the Treasury Department was considering whether to include the group on its list of terrorist organizations, Al-Haramain's Washington lawyer, Lynne Bernabei, asked to see the evidence.

That's when, in a case of bureaucratic bungling, Treasury officials mistakenly handed over the call log -- which has the words "top secret" stamped on every page -- along with press clippings and other unclassified documents deemed relevant to the case.

All copies have been returned, but in an odd legal twist, U.S. District Court Judge Garr King allowed the lawsuit to go forward with Eisenberg's team forced to rely on their memories of the Document.

The federal appeals court in San Francisco plans to hear arguments in the case Aug. 15.