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Obama Administration Asks Supreme Court to Dismiss ACLU Challenge to Warrantless Wiretapping Law

Yesterday, the government asked the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court ruling that allowed ACLU’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act to go forward. That law gives the government unprecedented authority to monitor Americans’ international emails and phone calls.

The appeals court ruling, which was issued in March 2011, held that ACLU’s case could forward, rejecting the administration’s arguments that the case should be dismissed because our clients could not prove their communications would be collected under the law.

ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer stated in a press release,

“It’s crucial that the government’s surveillance activities be subject to constitutional limits, but the administration’s argument would effectively insulate the most intrusive surveillance programs from judicial review. The Supreme Court should leave the appeals court’s ruling in place and allow our constitutional challenge to proceed.

The Justice Department claims that the plaintiffs should not be able to sue without first showing that they have been monitored under the program – information that the government refuses to provide.

The FISA Amendments Act is the most sweeping surveillance statute ever enacted by Congress. It allows dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international communications with none of the safeguards that the Constitution requires. Little is known about how the Act has been used.

In response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU, the government revealed that every six-month review of the Act had identified “compliance incidents,” suggesting either an inability or an unwillingness to properly safeguard Americans’ privacy rights. The government has withheld the details of those “compliance incidents,” however, including statistics relating to abuses of the Act.

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Source: occupyallstreets