By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press

NEW YORK - A civil-rights lawyer asked a federal appeals court Friday to restore a lawsuit challenging a law that lets the United States eavesdrop on overseas conversations. A government lawyer disagreed, saying a lower court got it right.

The verbal tug-of-war proceeded before a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which will rule at a later date.

Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, told the judges they should restore a lawsuit that claimed that the latest version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act hindered the work of attorneys, journalists and human-rights groups.

U.S. District Judge John Koeltl last year threw out the challenge, saying Americans' fears that their conversations will be monitored and their rights violated were "purely subjective."

Justice Department lawyer Douglas Letter said Koeltl got it right based on federal court rulings on similar issues in the past. He said the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the lawsuit since none of them could show they were subject to the surveillance.

The law was challenged by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, a group of international criminal-defense lawyers and an organization of women, among others.

The plaintiffs said their work causes them to speak with people and organizations they believe are possible surveillance targets under the law.

Letter said the government had even more authority before the new law to eavesdrop on overseas conversations.

"I'm puzzled because the harm was probably there all along," he said. "In the past, we could have done all kinds of surveillance that could have picked up all kinds of conversations by the plaintiffs because they weren't regulated at all."

Jaffer, though, said the government had to have suspicion in the past that national security could be affected to eavesdrop, whereas the new law gives the government wider authority to listen in on calls.

Judge Gerald Lynch questioned Letter about the ACLU's claim that the government could now obtain a surveillance order that would let it eavesdrop on a large scale.

"Why are they wrong?" he asked. He said he could see the attraction of eavesdropping "very broadly, which any reasonable government might want to do under a terrorism threat."

But Letter said the government would have to convince a court that such extensive use of the law was appropriate.

Jaffer conceded that the plaintiffs had reason to worry even before the new law was signed.

"They had to take precautions before and they have to take precautions now," Jaffer said, noting that some Americans must travel overseas to carry on sensitive conversations now.

He added: "The plaintiffs now have to worry about a much broader set of communications than they had to before."