Group of 19 diverse consumer and privacy groups sue NSA over massive surveillance program

By Madison Ruppert: An incredibly diverse coalition of 19 consumer and privacy groups filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) today, claiming that the massive data collection programs run by the agency violate the Constitution.
The group is spearheaded by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a group that has fought the NSA in the past.
The EFF also led another large coalition demanding an end to the NSA’s surveillance programs in the wake of the exposure of the PRISM program.
The lawsuit targets the NSA, FBI and Department of Justice and is a companion to the 2008 EFF case against the NSA, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and others on behalf of AT&T customers, according to EFF legal director Cindy Cohn.
This latest lawsuit focuses more on the most recently revealed details about the NSA’s data collection programs, all of which were outlined in documents leaked by Edward Snowden to The Washington Post and the Guardian.
Cohn told reporters that the groups found the first document revealing that Verizon was ordered to hand over all U.S. phone records for a three-month period by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to be especially troubling.

That was made even more worrisome when James Clapper admitted he had made “clearly erroneous” statements before the Senate and that Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows for the metadata of millions of Americans to be collected.
According to Cohn, metadata collection “allows the government to learn and track the associations of … organizations and their members,” referring to the diverse groups that have joined the EFF in the lawsuit.
Groups range from a number of gun-rights groups to the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.
If members of an organization like those named in the suit believe that their activity is being tracked by the government, it “creates a chilling effect,” according to Cohn, which means individuals will be less likely to joint that group or reach out.
“The best way for this to end would be for President Obama to decide that he wants to stop the spying,” Cohn said.
“In the meantime, [we're] going to bring this matter before the courts,” she said.
While the FBI, NSA and others claim their programs are entirely legal, Cohn argues it’s impossible to know since the FISC’s proceedings are completely secret.
“We think the right place to determine whether the government is acting legally is in the public, adversarial court system,” Cohn said.
“Internal checks within the executive branch are not sufficient under law, and neither is a one-sided court process,” she added.
“Anybody can convince themselves that what they’re doing is legal, but that’s not how we work in this country,” Cohn said.
Cohn said that even if the law does authorize the NSA’s activities, which they don’t think it does, the law is unconstitutional.
“Frankly, I don’t think [the NSA has] come clean at all about what they’re doing,” Cohn said.

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