On June 11th, the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the NSA’s surveillance program. The ACLU lawsuit alleges that the program violates the First Amendment rights or free speech and association, the right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment, and that the surveillance program exceeds the authority provided by the Patriot Act.
ACLU, a customer of Verizon, made the following comments:
This dragnet program is surely one of the largest surveillance efforts ever launched by a democratic government against its own citizens.
It is the equivalent of requiring every American to file a daily report with the government of every location they visited, every person they talked to on the phone, the time of each call, and the length of every conversation. The program goes far beyond even the permissible limits set by the Patriot Act and represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association and the right to privacy.
The complaint can be accessed here.
Francis P. Rojas