Federal Appeals Court Reinstates Lawsuit Challenging NSA
May 31, 2017 5:44:03 GMT -5
Post by avordvet on May 31, 2017 5:44:03 GMT -5
VICTORY: Federal Appeals Court Reinstates Lawsuit Challenging Constitutionality of the NSA's Mass Internet Surveillance Program
Rutherford Institute, May 25, 2017
Click here to read The Rutherford Institute's complaint in Wikimedia et al. v. National Security Agency.
RICHMOND, Va. — Ruling that the existence of the government’s mass internet surveillance program would violate the First and Fourth Amendments, a federal appeals court has given the green light to a lawsuit challenging the government’s domestic and international spying program. The lawsuit—brought by a coalition of educational, legal, human rights and media organizations, including The Rutherford Institute, the ACLU, the Wikipedia Foundation, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers—was dismissed by a federal district court in Maryland, which ruled that the groups do not have standing to sue the National Security Agency (NSA), the U.S. Department of Justice and their directors. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the lower court’s ruling in part, reinstating the lawsuit with Wikimedia as a party. A dissenting opinion filed in the case argued that all the plaintiffs have standing and should be allowed to proceed as parties to the lawsuit.
“On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Revelations about the NSA’s spying programs only scrape the surface in revealing the lengths to which government agencies and their corporate allies will go to conduct mass surveillance on Americans’ communications and transactions. Senator Ron Wyden was right when he warned, ‘If we do not seize this unique moment in our constitutional history to reform our surveillance laws and practices, we are all going to live to regret it.’”
www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/victory_federal_appeals_court_reinstates_lawsuit_challenging_constitutional
Rutherford Institute, May 25, 2017
Click here to read The Rutherford Institute's complaint in Wikimedia et al. v. National Security Agency.
RICHMOND, Va. — Ruling that the existence of the government’s mass internet surveillance program would violate the First and Fourth Amendments, a federal appeals court has given the green light to a lawsuit challenging the government’s domestic and international spying program. The lawsuit—brought by a coalition of educational, legal, human rights and media organizations, including The Rutherford Institute, the ACLU, the Wikipedia Foundation, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers—was dismissed by a federal district court in Maryland, which ruled that the groups do not have standing to sue the National Security Agency (NSA), the U.S. Department of Justice and their directors. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed the lower court’s ruling in part, reinstating the lawsuit with Wikimedia as a party. A dissenting opinion filed in the case argued that all the plaintiffs have standing and should be allowed to proceed as parties to the lawsuit.
“On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “Revelations about the NSA’s spying programs only scrape the surface in revealing the lengths to which government agencies and their corporate allies will go to conduct mass surveillance on Americans’ communications and transactions. Senator Ron Wyden was right when he warned, ‘If we do not seize this unique moment in our constitutional history to reform our surveillance laws and practices, we are all going to live to regret it.’”
www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/victory_federal_appeals_court_reinstates_lawsuit_challenging_constitutional