Unchecked Spying

What if the government was tapping your phone unconstitutionally and there was nothing you could do about it? You’d be living in the United States of America, at least as understood by the Justice Department. 

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, Jr., argued in the Supreme Court on Monday, October 29, that, for all practical purposes, the government’s authority to intercept Americans’ international phone calls and emails could not be challenged by the very people most likely to be harmed by it – lawyers, journalists, and human rights activists who regularly engage in such international communications on the very subjects and with the very people the government is likely to be monitoring. 

Resolution of the case, Clapper v. Amnesty International, may determine whether the most expansive government spying program ever authorized by Congress will be subject to adversarial constitutional review. The Bush administration famously argued that the president’s actions in “engaging the enemy” in the “war on terror” could not be limited by the other branches. It used that argument to justify a secret warrantless wiretapping program run by the National Security Agency that monitored United States citizens’ international communications, in contravention of a criminal statute.  

More here: http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/unchecked-spying