Legal battle over NSA surveillance grows

The Electronic Privacy Information Committee has filed a complaint with the Supreme Court questioning whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had the authority to order Verizon to turn over data from domestic phone records.

EPIC executive Marc Rotenberg said that EPIC, as a Verizon customer, has a right to ask the court to overturn the order. “We are just one of millions of Verizon customers and others who have made similar claims,” Rotenberg said. The privacy group joins several other organizations that have filed lawsuits objecting to the NSA’s surveillance program. In addition to several cases filed by the American Civil Liberties Union at state and district levels, Google and Microsoft have both challenged gag orders that prevent them from disclosing what data they are forced to give the government under a separate surveillance program, called PRISM. The companies say that the gag order inhibits their First Amendment right to free expression. The ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation digital rights group, First Amendment Coalition and others filed an amicus brief supporting Google and Microsoft with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The group said that the firms have faced public criticism for disclosing data to the government and that it is “antithetical to the First Amendment to restrict the ability of a person to mount a defense against public accusations by responding with speech setting forth the truth about one’s own actions.”