Trolling through my tweets I saw this gem from the Washington Editor of The Nation. Just who, I wondered, was the magazine pummeling in a dark alley?

Well, as it turns out, they’re taking on the federal government, with a bit of help from some friends:

A few hours after Bush’s signing [of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008], The Nation joined with the ACLU in a lawsuit filed in the US District Court (Southern District) of New York challenging the constitutionality of the Act. The Nation is suing on behalf of itself, our staff and two of our contributing writers–Chris Hedges and Naomi Klein. The defendants are the Attorney General of the United States, Michael Mukasey; John M. “Mike” McConnell, Director of National Intelligence; and Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Security Service. We filed suit along with a coalition of other plaintiffs including Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, Global Fund for Women, PEN American Center, Washington Office on Latin America, Service Employees International Union and several private attorneys.

Is it the role of a magazine to join such a lawsuit? Well, as editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel argues, warrentless wiretapping is not just an ominous form of creeping surveillance, it’s also a threat to investigative journalism. In the course of gathering information, independent reporters regularly communicate via phone and e-mail with political dissidents, activists and foreign journalists around the world—exchanges that could be classified as “foreign intelligence information” under the new act. Reporters like Hedges and Klein—who write about sensitive topics in conflict zones—will find it difficult to maintain the confidentiality of their sources under such conditions. “We are proud, then,” she writes, “to join with other patriots who understand the government’s legitimate interest in protecting the nation against terrorism can be fulfilled without sacrificing the constitutional liberties that make the US worth defending.”

F*ckin’ A! Way to “take it to the hill”…

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