Court dismisses lawsuit against US wiretapping
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. appeals court has ordered that a lawsuit against the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) for a wiretapping program be dismissed because the plaintiffs haven't been hurt by the agency's actions. A divided three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled Friday that the lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a group of journalists, lawyers and academics, be sent back to a district court judge to be dismissed. In August 2006, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled the NSA program, which monitored telephone and Internet communications without court-ordered warrants, was illegal. The appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs didn't prove they'd been affected by the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program, authorized by U.S. President George Bush in 2002. The program allowed the NSA to monitor communications between U.S. residents and people in other countries with suspected ties to terrorist group al Qaeda. The plaintiffs argued, among other things, that the program violated the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, protecting U.S. citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. But none of the plaintiffs could prove their Fourth-Amendment rights had been violated, wrote appeals court Judge Alice Batchelder. "The plaintiffs cannot show they have been or will be subject to surveillance personally," Batchelder wrote. The plaintiff's attempts to sue for other reasons, including violation of their First-Amendment, free-speech rights, are a "thinly veiled ruse," the judge added. None of the plaintiffs has shown that their speech has been hindered, she wrote. Neither the ACLU nor the U.S. Department of Justice, which appealed the lower court ruling on behalf of the NSA, were immediately available for comment on the ruling. Judge Ronald Lee Gilman disagreed with the two-judge majority, arguing that the NSA program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which establishes wiretapping procedures, including warrants. "When faced with the clear wording of FISA ... the conclusion becomes inescapable that [the program] was unlawful," he wrote.
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A federal judge struck down controversial portions of the USA Patriot Act in a ruling that declared them unconstitutional yesterday, ordering the FBI to stop its wide use of a warrantless tactic for obtaining e-mail and telephone data from private companies for counterterrorism investigations.
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The federal judge who ordered a halt to   the Bush administration's program of domestic wiretapping on   Thursday allowed the surveillance to continue for a week to   allow an appeals court to weigh in on an issue expected to end   up with the U.S. Supreme Court.
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A lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of pat-down searches of fans before Chicago Bears games at Soldier Field was dismissed Tuesday.
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A US judge throws out civil lawsuits accusing the Saudi government of helping the 9/11 hijackers.
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Loyal Bushies rejoice The American judicial system handed another victory to executive power today, as a federal court judge in San Jose threw out a lawsuit filed against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen for its involvement in the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. The lawsuit concerned five individuals who claimed to have been kidnapped by the CIA and then transported by Jeppesen to third countries, where they were subjected to torture, far from the glare of the western media.â¦
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The government can continue to use its warrantless domestic wiretap program pending the Justice Department's appeal of a federal judge's ruling outlawing the program, an Appeals Court in Cincinnati ruled on Wednesday.
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A US federal appeals court yesterday upheld a district court ruling in favor of an individual whose e-mail records were copied by government investigators from servers at Yahoo and another ISP. In so doing, the court may have prevented the government from loosely applying a key tool in its ability to obtain e-mail records without a warrant: the Stored Communications Act.
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A state judge in California on Thursday dismissed charges against the three remaining state criminal defendants in theÂ Hewlett-Packard spying case.
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What might have been a relatively insignificant case brought by a shareware re-distributor against security software firm Kaspersky Labs was granted a landmark dismissal on Tuesday, for reasons whose repercussions could lead to a new shield of legal security for anti-malware firms throughout the US.
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Pressing a judge to stop suits against top telecoms, the government cites national security interests. Plaintiffs argue everybody knows the government spies on Americans and the suits should continue. In 27B Stroke 6.
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A federal appeals court on Friday declined to force the government to turn over information on the National Security Agency's wiretapping program to a man charged in a terrorism case.
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Hold the phone: Warrantless surveillance of international calls and e-mails into and out of the United States can go ahead while a judge's ruling, which called the intercepts unconstitutional, works its way through the appeals process.
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Details of Bush-ordered NSA eavesdropping stay secret A US federal judge has ruled in favour of government agencies' refusal to release classified information related to a controversial surveillance programme.â¦
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Federal judge denies Justice Department's request to record parts of phone calls sans a wiretap order, concluding it violates the 4th Amendment.
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SETBACK FOR PRIVACY ADVOCATES: The Supreme Court, without comment, turned down an appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union to let it pursue a lawsuit against the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program.
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The US Department of Transportation has dismissed a claim filed against Northwest Airlines that accused the carrier of violating its own privacy policy when it gave government officials passenger information related to the Sept.