Sixth Circuit Dismisses ACLU Lawsuit Against Surveillance Program

CNN reports:

A federal appeals court Friday ordered the dismissal of an ACLU lawsuit challenging President Bush’s domestic surveillance program.

President Bush secretly instituted the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program after 9/11.

The plaintiffs — a group of journalists, scholars and legal advocates — had no legal standing to pursue their claims because they could not show they were targeted by the National Security Agency’s warrantless spying program, the court decided in a 2-1 vote.

TalkLeft advises that the legal fight over this surveillance is not over yet:

At least one other suit is pending, and standing to bring the lawsuit isn’t at issue and and thus is unlikely to be the basis for dismissal.

Readers may remember that Albany, NY defense lawyer Terry Kindlon, raised a similar challenge to the wiretapping in United States v. Aref (the so-called “terrorism” case from the Northern District of New York).

In December, 2005, while Aref’s case was pending, Terry learned from a New York Times article that his client had been tapped by the NSA. He immediately made some demands, followed up with some motions and, basically, got nowhere (although he did enjoy receiving a Government pleading containing a caption at the top of the first page, a signature at the bottom of the third page, and nothing but blank space (marked CLASSIFIED) in between).