Court Upholds US Government Eavesdropping

The larger issue involves the constitutionality of the government's electronic monitoring of targeted foreigners.

A federal appeals court in New York last year ruled domestic plaintiffs who deal with global clients and co-
workers reasonably feared the government was reading and hearing their sensitive communications. Those groups took costly measures to avoid such intrusions. The question to be addressed is whether certain Americans have "standing" to challenge the federal law without a specific showing they have been monitored.

Other lawsuits over the surveillance program that raise various legal issues are pending in lower courts. Previous petitions dealing with alleged abuses of the surveillance law also have been rejected by the court.
Another case will be heard later this month.

http://newsfeedresearcher.com/data/articles_n41_4/government-surveillance-court.html

Source for this story:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/09/justice/court-surveillance/

The CNN story offers the following clarifications:

"In this case, Verizon Communications, Sprint Nextel, and AT&T were accused of privacy violations by assisting the government with intelligence gathering following the hijack attacks on New York and Washington.

"The law had previously required the government to justify a national security interest before any phone calls and emails originating in another country could be monitored. A federal judge had to sign any search warrant. But President George W. Bush secretly suspended that requirement following the attacks.

"After "warrantless wiretapping" was exposed, the president and supporters in Congress moved to amend the law, which defenders contend is designed to target only foreigners living outside the United States.

"The retroactive immunity was challenged in the class action suit turned aside by the high court on Tuesday.

"Privacy groups worry such electronic dragnets could easily and unknowingly intrude on the privacy rights of U.S. citizens. The government calls that "speculation" but cites national security in refusing to provide specifics."