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The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine whether a group oflawyers, human rights activists, and journalists have legalstanding to pursue a constitutional challenge to a federal lawauthorizing broad electronic surveillance overseas. Members of the group are based in the US and thus cannot bedirectly targeted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act(FISA). But the plaintiffs say their work requires them to stay intelephone and e-mail contact with individuals in other countrieswho are likely to be targeted for surveillance by US intelligenceagencies, including suspected terrorists. The case stems from a secret Bush administration program thatconducted blanket surveillance of international telephone calls ande-mails as part of the administration s post-9/11 war on terror.The program bypassed the long-established requirement ofcourt-authorized warrants and was denounced by critics as illegaland unconstitutional. After the program was revealed, Congress amended FISA in 2008 toallow US intelligence to conduct similar electronic surveillanceprovided the targets were foreigners thought to be outside USterritory. It is the 2008 amendment to FISA that triggered the lawsuit by thelawyers, human rights activist, and journalists. The case is beinglitigated by the American Civil Liberties Union. The plaintiffs say dragnet surveillance overseas by the USgovernment is vacuuming up their US-based communications inviolation of their free speech and privacy rights. The plaintiffs include Amnesty International USA, Human RightsWatch, The Nation magazine, several other groups, and fourattorneys. A federal judge threw the lawsuit out in 2009, ruling that thecomplaint was based on an abstract fear that the plaintiffs communications might be monitored rather than evidence that theyactually were improperly monitored. Lacking such evidence theplaintiffs do not have the requisite legal standing to file theirlawsuit, the judge said. The Second US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York reversed thatdecision and reinstated the lawsuit in March 2011. The appealscourt said that the plaintiffs fear of government monitoring wasnot fanciful, paranoid, or otherwise unreasonable, given thecapabilities of US intelligence. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli urged the high court to take upthe case and reverse the Second Circuit decision. The panel s decision requires that the constitutionality ofan Act of Congress authorizing importantforeign-intelligence-gathering activity directed abroad at thirdparties be litigated in the abstract without an appropriate factualcontext, Mr. Verrilli wrote in his brief to the court. To establish standing to bring such a lawsuit the plaintiffs mustprove that their communications were actually monitored by USintelligence, Verrilli said. Such proof is difficult to obtain given the highly secret nature ofsurveillance work performed by the National Security Agency. Theissue at the Supreme Court will be whether the plaintiffs have madea sufficient enough showing to justify the lawsuit proceeding totrial. The appeals court properly recognized that our clients have areasonable basis to fear that the government may be monitoringtheir conversations, even though it has no reason to suspect themof having engaged in any unlawful activities, lead counsel JameelJaffer of the ACLU said in a statement. The constitutionality of the government s surveillance powerscan and should be tested in court, he added. We are hopeful theSupreme Court will agree. Specifically at issue in the underlying lawsuit is a 2008 amendmentto FISA that ACLU lawyers say authorizes mass acquisition ofUS-linked personal communications overseas without individualizedjudicial oversight. A mass acquisition order is a kind of blank check, which onceobtained permits without further judicial authorization whatever surveillance the government may choose to engage in fora period of up to one year, Mr. Jaffer wrote in his brief. The Act does not require the government to demonstrate to theFISA [supervising] court that its surveillance targets are foreignagents, engaged in criminal activity, or connected even remotelywith terrorism, he wrote. Indeed, the statute does not requirethe government to identify its surveillance targets at all. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as China Customized Sports Bag , Thailand Soccer Jersey, and more. For more , please visit Sublimated Basketball Uniforms today!
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