A broad coalition comprising 19 American organisations, led by the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF), has filed a lawsuit against the US National Security Agency over its extensive surveillance programme.
“Our case seeks to apply the right of association in the digital age,” said EFF legal Director Cindy Cohn, noting in a statement: “The First Amendment protects the freedom to associate and express political views as a group, but the NSA’s mass, untargeted collection of Americans’ phone records violates that right by giving the Government a detailed picture of our associational ties. Who we call, how often we call them, and how long we speak shows the Government what groups we belong to or associate with, which political issues concern us, and our religious affiliation. Exposing this information — especially in a massive, untargeted way over a long period of time — violates the Constitution and the basic First Amendment tests that have been in place for over 50 years.”
It is the second major lawsuit to be slapped on the Obama administration. The New York-based American Civil liberties Union (AClU) has already filed its own, challenging the constitutionality of the surveillance programme that collects telephone records of millions from telecom companies. The new suit brings together a disparate formation, composed of groups with diverse persuasions that includes the First Unitarian Church of los Angeles, the gun rights group Calguns Foundation, Greenpeace and Human Rights Watch.
EEF, which boasts of years of experience fighting illegal government surveillance in the courts, said the suit contends the government’s collection of “metadata” or information on calls placed, without the content of the conversation, allows the government to monitor who is associating with various groups. “People who hold controversial views -- whether it’s about gun ownership policies, drug legalization, or immigration -- often must express views as a group in order to act and advocate effectively,” said Cohn, adding: “Fear of individual exposure when participating in political debates over high-stakes issues can dissuade people from taking part. That’s why the Supreme Court ruled in 1958 that membership lists of groups have strong First Amendment protection.”