SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Challenge to NSA's Mass Surveillance Inches Way Up Court System
Sep 02, 2014
This morning, we're heading back to court to challenge the NSA's phone-records program, this time in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
Several district courts have already ruled on the program, with one calling it "almost Orwellian." And, of course, the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has approved it many times. But one consequence of the excessive secrecy surrounding the program is that it has never been reviewed by the Supreme Court or even by a federal appeals court. Until now.
Our lawsuit and the several similar lawsuits that have been filed around the country are significant for many reasons. The phone-records program - under which the NSA collects a record of the calls made by millions of Americans every single day - is perhaps the most sweeping surveillance operation ever directed against the American public by our government. It raises profound questions about the role of government in a democracy and about the future of privacy in the digital era. And it threatens our constitutional rights in ways unimaginable by the founders of our country.
As we argued in a brief to the court:
Each time a resident of the United States makes a phone call, the NSA records whom she calls, when the call was placed, and how long the conversation lasted. The NSA keeps track of when she called the doctor, and which doctor she called; which family members she called, and which she did not; which pastor she called, and for how long she spoke to him. It keeps track of whether, how often, and precisely when she called the abortion clinic, the support group for alcoholics, the psychiatrist, the ex-girlfriend, the criminal-defense lawyer, the suicide hotline, and the child-services agency.
The legal challenges are also significant for the simple fact that they have forced the government to defend its program in public. For over a decade, the government has thwarted all attempts at public judicial review of the legality of the surveillance programs it inaugurated in the aftermath of 9/11. It erected procedural barriers and invoked the state-secrets doctrine to have those challenges thrown out of court.
But today, we're one step closer to having a definitive ruling on the legality of at least one of those programs. We are optimistic that the court will agree with us that the bulk collection of sensitive information on millions of innocent Americans is unlawful.
Stay tuned for our update after the hearing or watch it on C-SPAN here.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 ACLU
This morning, we're heading back to court to challenge the NSA's phone-records program, this time in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
Several district courts have already ruled on the program, with one calling it "almost Orwellian." And, of course, the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has approved it many times. But one consequence of the excessive secrecy surrounding the program is that it has never been reviewed by the Supreme Court or even by a federal appeals court. Until now.
Our lawsuit and the several similar lawsuits that have been filed around the country are significant for many reasons. The phone-records program - under which the NSA collects a record of the calls made by millions of Americans every single day - is perhaps the most sweeping surveillance operation ever directed against the American public by our government. It raises profound questions about the role of government in a democracy and about the future of privacy in the digital era. And it threatens our constitutional rights in ways unimaginable by the founders of our country.
As we argued in a brief to the court:
Each time a resident of the United States makes a phone call, the NSA records whom she calls, when the call was placed, and how long the conversation lasted. The NSA keeps track of when she called the doctor, and which doctor she called; which family members she called, and which she did not; which pastor she called, and for how long she spoke to him. It keeps track of whether, how often, and precisely when she called the abortion clinic, the support group for alcoholics, the psychiatrist, the ex-girlfriend, the criminal-defense lawyer, the suicide hotline, and the child-services agency.
The legal challenges are also significant for the simple fact that they have forced the government to defend its program in public. For over a decade, the government has thwarted all attempts at public judicial review of the legality of the surveillance programs it inaugurated in the aftermath of 9/11. It erected procedural barriers and invoked the state-secrets doctrine to have those challenges thrown out of court.
But today, we're one step closer to having a definitive ruling on the legality of at least one of those programs. We are optimistic that the court will agree with us that the bulk collection of sensitive information on millions of innocent Americans is unlawful.
Stay tuned for our update after the hearing or watch it on C-SPAN here.
This morning, we're heading back to court to challenge the NSA's phone-records program, this time in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
Several district courts have already ruled on the program, with one calling it "almost Orwellian." And, of course, the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has approved it many times. But one consequence of the excessive secrecy surrounding the program is that it has never been reviewed by the Supreme Court or even by a federal appeals court. Until now.
Our lawsuit and the several similar lawsuits that have been filed around the country are significant for many reasons. The phone-records program - under which the NSA collects a record of the calls made by millions of Americans every single day - is perhaps the most sweeping surveillance operation ever directed against the American public by our government. It raises profound questions about the role of government in a democracy and about the future of privacy in the digital era. And it threatens our constitutional rights in ways unimaginable by the founders of our country.
As we argued in a brief to the court:
Each time a resident of the United States makes a phone call, the NSA records whom she calls, when the call was placed, and how long the conversation lasted. The NSA keeps track of when she called the doctor, and which doctor she called; which family members she called, and which she did not; which pastor she called, and for how long she spoke to him. It keeps track of whether, how often, and precisely when she called the abortion clinic, the support group for alcoholics, the psychiatrist, the ex-girlfriend, the criminal-defense lawyer, the suicide hotline, and the child-services agency.
The legal challenges are also significant for the simple fact that they have forced the government to defend its program in public. For over a decade, the government has thwarted all attempts at public judicial review of the legality of the surveillance programs it inaugurated in the aftermath of 9/11. It erected procedural barriers and invoked the state-secrets doctrine to have those challenges thrown out of court.
But today, we're one step closer to having a definitive ruling on the legality of at least one of those programs. We are optimistic that the court will agree with us that the bulk collection of sensitive information on millions of innocent Americans is unlawful.
Stay tuned for our update after the hearing or watch it on C-SPAN here.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.