David Kravets reports:
The two American lawyers who were illegally wiretapped by the Bush administration asked a federal judge Friday to order the government to pay $612,000 in damages, plus legal fees for their attorneys.
The demand (.pdf) comes two weeks after U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said the former administration wiretapped the lawyers’ telephone conversations (.pdf) without a warrant, in violation of federal law.
[…]
The lawyers are seeking $204,000 each, in addition to $204,000 for the charity, whose U.S. assets are frozen because of its terror designation. Judge Walker did not immediately rule on the request.
Read more on Threat Level.
Of course, it’s the taxpayers who will pay the tab, and the figure Kravets uses in the headline does not include all of the time/costs incurred by the DOJ defending the indefensible.
Curiously, the plaintiff’s attorneys seek liquidated damages of $100 per day per plaintiff for each day that they were wiretapped illegally, or $20,400 per plaintiff in damages. The remaining award to plaintiffs would be for punitive damages.
$100 per day for being illegally wiretapped? Is that all an invasion of privacy and destruction of our constitutional rights is worth? Hmmmm….