Court Denies Cert in ACLU Wiretap Challenge
An American Civil Liberties Union challenge to the government’s warrantless wiretapping program has been stymied with the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to review the case.
The court denied cert today, SCOTUSblog reports.
The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in July that the ACLU and other plaintiffs had lacked standing to sue because they provided no evidence they were personally subject to the surveillance program.
The National Security Agency spy program had allowed government surveillance of electronic communications between people in the United States and overseas terrorism suspects.
The plaintiffs had submitted declarations from lawyers for accused terrorists who said they had stopped communicating by phone or e-mail with their clients because of the possibility of government wiretaps, Legal Times reported in a story reprinted on SCOTUSblog. The government has refused to reveal who has been wiretapped under the program, citing the state secrets doctrine.
ACLU legal director Steven Shapiro says the government secrecy creates a catch-22 since potential plaintiffs can’t sue unless they know they have been wiretapped, the Associated Press reports.
