''American Civil Liberties Union v. National Security Agency'', 493 F.3d 644 (6th Cir. 2007), is a case decided July 6, 2007, in which the

United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (in case citations, 6th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * Eastern District of Kentucky * Western District of ...

held that the plaintiffs in the case did not have

standing Standing, also referred to as orthostasis, is a position in which the body is held in an ''erect'' ("orthostatic") position and supported only by the feet. Although seemingly static, the body rocks slightly back and forth from the ankle in the s ...

to bring the suit against the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...

(NSA), because they could not present evidence that they were the targets of the so-called "

Terrorist Surveillance Program The Terrorist Surveillance Program was an electronic surveillance program implemented by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was part of the President's Surveillance Program, ...

" (TSP). On January 17, 2006, the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

(ACLU) on its own behalf, and on the behalf of three other organizations and five individuals, sued the

(NSA) in the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (in case citations, E.D. Mich.) is the federal district court with jurisdiction over of the eastern half of the Lower Peninsula of the State of Michigan. The Court is based ...

, seeking

declaratory judgment A declaratory judgment, also called a declaration, is the legal determination of a court that resolves legal uncertainty for the litigants. It is a form of legally binding preventive by which a party involved in an actual or possible legal ma ...

and injunctive relief arguing the TSP was unconstitutional and a violation of federal law. The government argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed or alternatively be granted

summary judgment In law, a summary judgment (also judgment as a matter of law or summary disposition) is a judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, i.e., without a full trial. Summary judgments may be issued on the merits of ...

based on the State Secrets Privilege and the plaintiffs' lack of

. On August 17, 2006, District Court Judge

Anna Diggs Taylor Anna Katherine Diggs Taylor ( Johnston; December 9, 1932 – November 4, 2017) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Education and career Born in Washington, D.C. as Anna ...

granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs, ruling that the TSP specifically involving "international telephone and internet communications of numerous persons and organizations" within the United States of America, was unconstitutional and illegal, and ordered that it be halted immediately.
ACLU v. NSA
', 438 F. Supp. 2d 754 (E.D. Mich. 2006). She stayed her order pending appeal. She did not rule on the alleged NSA database of domestic

call detail record A call detail record (CDR) is a data record produced by a telephone exchange or other telecommunications equipment that documents the details of a telephone call or other telecommunications transactions (e.g., text message) that passes through that ...

s, citing the State Secrets Privilege. On January 31, 2007, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court ruling on the grounds that the plaintiffs could not show that they had been or would be subjected to surveillance personally, and therefore they lacked standing before the Court. The Court emphasized, however, that FISA and Title III are the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance is permitted and that no other authorization can comply with the law. On February 19, 2008, the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, without comment, turned down an appeal from the ACLU to let it pursue a lawsuit against the program that began shortly after the

September 11th terrorist attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...

Background

After

September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

(or perhaps earlier), the NSA began a classified foreign intelligence program, since named the Terrorist Surveillance Program, to intercept the international telephone and internet communications of numerous persons and organizations within the United States, without obtaining warrants and therefore outside the parameters of the

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and the collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign pow ...

. The

plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of t ...

s include the ACLU, the

Council on American–Islamic Relations The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group. It is headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., with regional offices nationwide. Through civil rights actions, media relations, civic enga ...

, the

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) is an American criminal defense organization. Members include private criminal defense lawyers, public defenders, active U.S. military defense counsel, law professors, judges, and d ...

, and Greenpeace along with five individuals who are authors and journalists:

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...

James Bamford James Bamford (born September 15, 1946) is an American author, journalist and documentary producer noted for his writing about United States intelligence agencies, especially the National Security Agency (NSA). ''The New York Times'' has call ...

Tara McKelvey Tara Shannon McKelvey is an American journalist who is a White House reporter for the BBC and a former correspondent for ''Newsweek/The Daily Beast''. She has reported on topics which include national-security issues from the Middle East, South A ...

democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...

scholar

Larry Diamond Larry Jay Diamond (born October 2, 1951) is an American political sociologist and leading contemporary scholar in the field of democracy studies. Diamond is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, which is Stanf ...

of Stanford University and the

Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, an ...

, and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

scholar

Barnett Rubin Barnett Richard Rubin (born January 10, 1950) is an American political scientist and a leading expert on Afghanistan and South Asia. He is the author of eight books and is currently Senior Fellow and Director at the Center on International Coopera ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. They stated in their complaint that they all have a history of communicating with people in or from the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...

and on that basis they had a "well founded belief" of having been targeted by the TSP, based on the available public information regarding the program. ''ACLU v. NSA'', along with a separate lawsuit simultaneously filed by the

Center for Constitutional Rights The Center for Constitutional RightsThe Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) is a Judge Taylor wrote a 44-page, 11-part opinion in which she examined the defendant's claim over state secrets, standing, and the President's war time claim. Judge Taylor found that the NSA surveillance Program violated

statutory law Statutory law or statute law is written law passed by a body of legislature. This is opposed to oral or customary law; or regulatory law promulgated by the executive or common law of the judiciary. Statutes may originate with national, stat ...

in regard to the

FISA The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and the collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign pow ...

. Furthermore, she concluded that the NSA program violated the Constitution in regard to the

First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

, Fourth Amendment, and

Separation of powers Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typic ...

Doctrine. Judge Taylor stayed her own opinion, preventing it from taking effect, pending a September 7 hearing. Here are some excerpts from her opinion:

Reaction

The

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

issued a statement saying: ACLU Executive Director

Anthony Romero Anthony D. Romero (Born July 9, 1965) is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. He assumed the position in 2001 as the first Latino and openly gay man to do so. Early life and education Romero was born in Bronx, New York ...

stated: According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', several legal experts, including some who agreed with its conclusion, said the decision "overlooked important precedents, failed to engage the government’s major arguments, used circular reasoning, substituted passion for analysis and did not even offer the best reasons for its own conclusions". Some legal analysts, such as '' Salon'' columnist

Glenn Greenwald Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author and lawyer. In 2014, he cofounded ''The Intercept'', of which he was an editor until he resigned in October 2020. Greenwald subsequently started publishing on Substac ...

argued that critics of Taylor's reasoning were mistaken: Still others, such as Harvard constitutional law professor

Laurence Tribe Laurence Henry Tribe (born October 10, 1941) is an American legal scholar who is a University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He previously served as the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School. A constitutional law sc ...

, took an intermediate position:

Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals

On October 4, 2006, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal stayed the district court's ruling pending evaluation of the government's appeal. In the three-paragraph ruling, the court explained that it decided to grant the government's motion to stay after balancing the likelihood an appeal would succeed, the potential damage to both sides, and the public's interest in final judicial decree. The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on the government's appeal on January 31, 2007. In its July 6, 2007 decision, the circuit court overturned Judge Taylor's ruling in a 2–1 vote. The majority declined to rule on the legality of the program, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit. Here are some excerpts of the Court's decision: (Footnotes omitted)

U.S. Supreme Court

On February 19, 2008, the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

denied the ACLU's petition for a

writ of certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...

, declining to hear an appeal in the case.552 U.S. 1179 (2008).

References

External links

{{wikisource, ACLU v. NSA, ''ACLU v. NSA''

Court documents

* Complaint
''ACLU v. NSA''
filed by the ACLU * Ruling:
ACLU v. NSA
', 438 F. Supp. 2d 754 (E.D. Mich. 2006) - District court's ruling granting summary judgment to plaintiffs * Ruling:
ACLU v. NSA
', 493 F.3d 544 (6th Cir. 2007) - Sixth Circuit's opinion, vacating and remanding the judgment of the district court