EFF Sues NSA, President Bush, and VP Cheney

VisualE writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will file a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records. The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance."

Comments

How can you sue?

[boxless]

when you can't legally get at the evidence?

The plaintiff's need to prove they were harmed in some way. And proving they were harmed will require divulging state secrets.

Case dismissed.

Re:Big

[gfxguy]

They don't have anywhere near the recognition outside of the IT industry that the ACLU has.

Most of what you wrote about the EFF applies to the ACLU, also.

If they are redundantly making a case, they ought to be careful about it - the ACLU and EFF should certainly be cooperative towards each other, IMO.

Re:Big

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, that nice long list of cases does not disprove my assertion, that they lost plenty of cases.

Don't be throwin stones from your glass house - your assertion of the unnumbered 'plenty' aint shit without a cite.
At least he did better in one post than you have in two.

That list doesn't have their losses I notice.

Ah, so it is up to him to prove your point too? No wonder lawyers have such a piss poor rep.

Re:Big [waste of time]

[megamerican]

You are incorrect. Calder V. Bull deals with Article 1 Section 10 which deals with STATES. Article 1 Section 9 deals with CONGRESS of the US.

Of course that doesn't stop any court, including the supreme from changing the meaning of words in the constitution.

Don't you remember when Scalia recently went on ABC saying that not all torture is cruel and unusual punishment?

If you don't think that giving retroactive immunity to corporations who spied on American citizens wasn't what the framers had in mind when they wrote in Article 1 Section 9, "No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." you must be smoking something.

Please go read what Thomas Jefferson had to say about the judicial branch and maybe you'll be able to get a somewhat clearer picture.

Also remember that the supreme court has ruled that how much wheat you can grow on your own land is "interstate commerce" and can be regulated by congress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn