WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union and three other groups sued the Bush administration yesterday, demanding information about expanded Justice Department surveillance in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The private organizations are seeking information about how the government is carrying out record-gathering at libraries, bookstores, and Internet service providers. The lawsuit was filed almost a year after President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act, which widened the government's surveillance power as part of the effort to prevent further terrorist attacks.

The case filed in US District Court alleges the Justice Department has provided no information on parts of the Patriot Act that have ''obvious and serious implications for individual privacy and the freedom of speech.''

The groups on Aug. 21 asked for all policy directives and other guidance that the Justice Department and the FBI issued on:

• Obtaining circulation records from libraries, purchase records from bookstores, or e-mail records from Internet service providers.
• The expanded use of pen registers and trap-and-trace devices. Pen registers capture phone numbers dialed on outgoing calls; trap-and-trace devices capture numbers identifying incoming calls.

The groups are also demanding information about the number of times the Justice Department has engaged in various types of surveillance in the past year. The Justice Department says such data are classified.

Other groups joining the suit were the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, and the Freedom to Read Foundation.

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press

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