Appeals Court Considers Bush Wiretapping Program The Obama administration is urging a federal appeals court to toss out a ruling that repudiated a controversial Bush administration warrantless wiretap program. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers argued Friday before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the case should be thrown out on national security grounds as well as for technical reasons. The Oregon branch of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation sued the government in 2005 after discovering its lawyers were targets of government wiretaps. The foundation believed the wiretaps were part of the Bush administration's new anti-terrorism program that allowed for warrentless eavesdropping. The program was ended in 2007. A trial judge in 2010 awarded the foundation and its lawyers $2.6 million.