The Bush administration requested a federal judge on Monday to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union over the government’s warrantless domestic surveillance program. Monday marked the first time a lawsuit over the National Security Agency’s program made its way to court. The ACLU asked the court in Detroit to force the NSA to shut down the program. The group maintains President Bush was not authorized by Congress to order the NSA to begin eavesdropping on Americans. The ACLU also believes the president violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that forbids surveillance of people inside the United States without a warrant. Attorneys from the Justice Department defended the legality of the program but told the judge that the evidence needed to demonstrate its lawfulness cannot be disclosed without causing grave harm to national security. After the court hearing, the ACLU’s executive director Anthony Romero called the government’s invocation of the state secrets privilege '’Orwellian doublespeak.'’ Romero said, ’’They argued essentially that the N.S.A. program was off limits to judicial review.”