We Don't Wanna Hear It: Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to NSA's Bulk Collection Program

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/18-2



Nation's highest court refuses to entertain challenge of domestic spying program revealed by Edward Snowden

We Don't Wanna Hear It: Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to NSA's Bulk Collection Program
Jon Queally, staff writer
Published on Monday, November 18, 2013 by Common Dreams

The U.S. Supreme Court unceremoniously denied a legal challenge brought against the National Security Agency for its domestic spying program that has allowed for the bulk collection of the phone data of millions of U.S. cell phone users.

The challenge, brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), was unique in that it was the first of its kind to reach the Supreme Court by bypassing lower federal courts.

That was necessary, according to EPIC, because no other federal court would have the authority to challenge the secrecy inherent in the NSA program or weigh in on the closed-door authorization the spy agency received from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) which approved the process by which Verizon was compelled to hand over all of its customer records—which number in the tens of millions—to the government.

The existence of the program only came to public light after a FISC order was leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and published in a newspaper article by journalist Glenn Greenwald in June.