By Teresa Carson PORTLAND Ore. (Reuters) - Attorneys for a Somali-American man convicted of trying to blow up a Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in Oregon argued for a new trial on Wednesday, telling a judge the former college student's constitutional rights were violated by warrantless surveillance. Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who was arrested in a sting operation involving fake explosives when he was 19, tried to use his cell phone in 2010 to remotely detonate an artificial car bomb planted near a Portland square crowded with people. Lawyers for the former Oregon State University student argued in federal court in Portland on Wednesday that authorities violated Mohamud's constitutional rights by obtaining information from his electronic communications with foreign citizens whom the federal government had placed under surveillance without a warrant.

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