ACLU vs. Clapper, Alexander, Hagel, Holder, and Mueller - 8

This series is about a case filed in the Second Circuit, in the Federal District Court in Manhattan (complaint: ACLU v. Clapper et. al.).

A judge in the District of Columbia Circuit, in a Federal District Court there, has ruled that the military NSA practices are likely unconstitutional, and has therefore issued a preliminary injunction (pre-trial).

At footnote two of the judge's memorandum opinion, the judge mentions the case this Dredd Blog series is following.

The judge wrote the following: "The complaint in ACLU v. Clapper, Civ. No. 13-3994, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on June 11, 2013, alleges claims similar to those in the instant two cases."

In issuing the injunction, the court ruled to wit:

But in the meantime, for all the above reasons, I will grant Larry Klayman's and Charles Strange's requests for an injunction and enter an order that (1) bars the Government from collecting, as part of the NSA's Bulk Telephony Metadata Program, any telephony metadata associated with their personal Verizon accounts and (2) requires the Government to destroy any such metadata in its possession that was collected through the bulk collection program.

(Klayman v Obama, U.S. Dist. Court for the Dist. of Columbia, 12/16/13, PDF). The judge stayed the injunction pending appeal, but told the government to start figuring out how to lose the data it has collected.

That decision by conservative Judge Leon (appointed by Bush II) may help persuade the judge in the ACLU v. Clapper case Dredd Blog is following in this series.

We await a decision by Judge Pauley in this ACLU v Clapper case.

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UPDATE: Judge Pauley, of the DCNY federal court, reached the opposite conclusion from what federal Judge Leon did in Klayman v Obama.

New York federal Judge Pauley, appointed by President Clinton, ruled in favor of the government, and dismissed the case brought by the ACLU (ACLU vs. Clapper, PDF), prompting this comment by the ACLU:

“We are extremely disappointed with this decision, which misinterprets the relevant statutes, understates the privacy implications of the government’s surveillance and misapplies a narrow and outdated precedent to read away core constitutional protections,” said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director. “As another federal judge and the president’s own review group concluded last week, the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of telephony data constitutes a serious invasion of Americans’ privacy. We intend to appeal and look forward to making our case in the Second Circuit.”

(ACLU Blog). We will follow the two federal cases in this series as they move on to the Federal Appellate courts and the Supreme Court.

The ACLU filed an appeal in ACLU v Clapper (Guardian).

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UPDATE 2: Another case is moving along in the Ninth Circuit:

That case is: First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA
A copy of the complaint in that case is here (PDF).

This makes three federal circuits in which the NSA is now being sued (D.C. Cir., 2nd Cir., and 9th Cir.).

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The next post in this series is here, previous post in this series is here.

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