Federal court opens door to shutdown of NSA spy program

Federal court opens door to shutdown of NSA spy program

'The government has to obey the Fourth Amendment no matter what'

Published: 1 hour ago

Bob Unruh

A federal judge on Wednesday opened the door to the possibility that he might soon shut down the National Security Agency’s spy-on-Americans program that snatches cell-phone data across the nation.

It was what Judge Richard Leon wanted to do two years ago before he suspended his ruling to allow the government to appeal.
But on Wednesday, on instructions from an appeals court to conduct a hearing on discovery in the case brought by attorney Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch, Leon approved Klayman’s plan to file a fourth amendment complaint.
He also said he would expect a renewed motion for a preliminary injunction by the end of Monday, and the government’s response is due by Oct. 1.
Then a hearing on that issue is scheduled Oct. 8.
Klayman told WND after Wednesday’s hearing that the judge could issue an injunction at that time.
While Leon’s original decision was to issue an injunction against the program, which he called “almost Orwellian,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia disagreed.
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But key was the fact that the appeals judges ruled on a technicality – standing – and not on the district court’s original determination.
The higher court had said Klayman used Verizon for his provider, when the claims that the government was sweeping up data involved Verizon Business Network.
Klayman has added plaintiffs using that network to satisfy that specific concern.
The Washington Examiner reported Klayman said after the hearing, “The reason for an injunction would be very simple. The government has to obey the Fourth Amendment no matter what law is in effect, whether it’s the old law or the USA Freedom Act.”
Leon had ruled in December 2013 that the NSA and other defendants had engaged in unconstitutional surveillance of the American public through indiscriminate access to telephonic metadata.
Klayman originally had sued the NSA, Barack Obama, then-Attorney General Eric Holder and a long list of other federal officials after the spy program was revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, who spilled the beans on much of the government’s Big Brother tactics, then fled to Russia.
Plaintiffs in the case include Klayman, Charles and Mary Ann Strange, Michael Ferrari, Matt Garrison and J.J. Little and other defendants include NSA chief Keith Alexander, U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Judge Roger Vinson, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA chief John Brennan, FBI chief James Comey, the Department of Justice, CIA and FBI.
Klayman obtained Leon’s ruling in late 2013 that the situation was “almost Orwellian” and said the spying likely was unconstitutional.
Klayman’s recent submission in the case explains of the NSA spy program, “Such broad and intrusive collections and surveillance tactics, without regard to any showing of probable cause, much less a reasonable suspicion of communications with terrorists or the commission of another crime, directly violate the U.S. Constitution and also federal laws, including, but not limited to, the … breach of privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of association and the due process rights of American citizens.
“Plaintiffs are suing for damages, declaratory, equitable and injunctive relief to stop this illegal conduct and hold defendants, individually and collectively, responsible for their unconstitutional surveillance, which has violated the law and damaged the fundamental freedoms and rights of American citizens.”
Snowden blew the whistle on the agency’s vacuum-cleaner approach to data collection, called “bulk telephony metadata.” That was earlier in 2013, and Snowden has been living in exile in Russia as a wanted man by the U.S. government ever since.
Two of America’s influential civil-rights groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have sided with Klayman.
The data that the NSA collects, they explained in a brief, “reveals political affiliation, religious practices and peoples’ most intimate associations.”
“It reveals who calls a suicide prevention line and who calls their elected official; who calls the local tea-party office and who calls Planned Parenthood.”
The brief said “the relevant fact for whether an expectation of privacy exists is that the comprehensive telephone records the government collects – not just the records of a few calls over a few days but all of a person’s calls over many years – reveals highly personal information about the person and her life.”

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http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/federal-court-opens-door-to-shutdown-of-nsa-spy-program/