Supreme Court shouldn't review NSA spying case, U.S. gov't says

A privacy group lacks legal standing to challenge a U.S. National Security Agency data collection program, and the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t have jurisdiction to grant the group’s request for it to review the program’s legality, lawyers for President Barack Obama’s administration have argued.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center can’t challenge the legality of the NSA’s practice of collecting U.S. telephone records because the Patriot Act of 2001 only allows challenges from businesses that receive government orders to turn over business records or from the U.S. government, according to U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. and lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice, who made the argument in a brief filed Monday.

Because the law doesn’t allow EPIC to challenge an NSA order directed at Verizon Communications, the Supreme Court “lacks jurisdiction” to act on EPIC’s request, they wrote.

Background

EPIC filed a motion in July asking the Supreme Court to vacate an order from the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Court requiring Verizon to turn over all its phone records. If the court decides against that course of action, EPIC asked it to review the legality of the program.

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Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2054900/supreme-court-shouldnt-review-nsa-spying-case-us-govt-says.html#tk.rss_all

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