Appeals court tosses NSA spy program suit

A federal appeals court on Friday threw out a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others against the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.

In a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati reversed a federal district court ruling last summer that found the National Security Agency surveillance program violated the U.S. Constitution.

The majority ruled that the ACLU and the collection of journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations it represented did not have legal standing to bring their case. They had argued that the NSA program was trampling on federal laws and their constitutional rights because they had reason to believe the feds were sweeping up international communications they intended to keep private.

The two judges' reason for dismissing the case boiled down to one major point: the plaintiffs hadn't shown evidence that they have been "personally" subject to the eavesdropping program. They sent the decision back to the lower court and recommended the suit's dismissal.

One judge, however, said he fundamentally disagreed with their stance and would have chosen to uphold the lower court's ruling.

Read CNET News.com's full story here.

[chris_d]

Going in circles

You can't sue the government for spying on you because you don't have proof, which you won't be able to get unless a court orders the government to turn over information about spying on you which it won't do because you don't have proof.

[bosforus1]

boo hoo

the ACLU hasn't been affected by the NSA wiretapping? that's no surprise since i haven't heard of a single case where anyone has complained about it or has been affected by it in any way? i thought it was funny how the story reads, "...reason to believe the feds were sweeping up international communications they intended to keep private" oh no, please don't gather information about me and keep it private! yes, it was warrantless, obviously. but no one's going to have a real case against it until a mistake is made, and when that happens we can just ignore any good that it may have done and we can try to impeach somebody for it.

[worsethannormal]

Wow that's easy

So they can't bring a suit because they can't prove they were "personaly" affected by the Government's "super-secret" (so secret there wasn't even court supervision) domestic spying program? Why? Because they can't prove they were spied on. Why can't they prove they were spied on? Because the Governement un-Constitutionally and illegally carried out its spying without seeking court aproval and "create" a (though be it) secret record of its spying activities (in the court records.<br /><br />So the Government can act as illegally as it wants against its own people as long as it keeps its illegal activity secret from its people. Wow that's the U.S. of A. I want to live in.<br /><br />Another point that needs to be made about this story; something no one ever points out. This warantless domestic spying progam is not just an invasion of one's privacy. It is the Bush Administration using military force against the citizenry of the U.S. Bush's own logic for why the program was constitutional bears this out. To paraphrase: "We are at War. As a war time president, Bush can use military force as he sees fit. Intellegence gathering is a type of milittary force, thus the president can use Intellgence as he sees fit." This is where Bush always ended his "logical" defense of this program. But there is an obviuos concluding sentence missing from this argument: thus, Bush saw fit to use military force against citizens of the U.S. This is the same as if he sent soldiers into our cities and our homes; to use their weapons (paid for with ouur TAX DOLLARS) against US! And stood, gripping our ankles and asked for more. Patriots to the last.

[perfectblue97]

Let me get this straigh......

....The court tossed the case because it was being brought by a civil liberties group acting on behalf of victims of unconstitutional wire tapping, rather than by the actual victims themselves.<br /><br />This sucks, this sucks big time. What good is constitutional protection if the courts are going in looking for loopholes.

[perfectblue97]

Except...

How would the average man on the street even know if they were being wiretapped. Would you know?<br /><br />For all you know the feds could have been reading your personal email for years. Like them or not, and I don't, the ACLU is standing up for the constitution, and without them we might wake up one day and find that we're shy a couple of amendments.