The race to bring NSA surveillance to the Supreme Court

It’s been almost a year since the nation learned that the government has been heavily surveilling Americans using a web of programs that potentially violate the Constitution or at least some laws.

The legality of those programs has yet to be definitively challenged. Even if the programs are legal, many feel the government is at least obligated to be transparent about them.

There have been at least 25 major lawsuits have been filed against the National Security Agency, President Barack Obama, telecommunications companies that facilitated data collection, and others involved in the government’s surveillance programs since Edward Snowden’s first revelations on June 6th, 2013, according to investigative journalism nonprofit ProPublica.

There have been various rulings by lower courts and appeals courts, some of which contradict each other. So far, only one case has been dismissed. The lack of consensus suggests that some part of the NSA program should eventually come before the Supreme Court.

There are arguably three cases closest to reaching the Supreme Court, all challenging section 215 and the phone-record surveillance. Two were filed after the Snowden revelations, and one was filed back in 2006 but just recently cleared a legal hurdle: Klayman v. Obama et. al., ACLU et. al. v. Clapper et. al., and Jewel et. al. v. National Security Agency.