On June 12, 2013, a private citizen who is a Verizon Wireless subscriber filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, under 5 U.S.C. § 706 and the Constitution, against the President, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Security Agency, the ...
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On June 12, 2013, a private citizen who is a Verizon Wireless subscriber filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, under 5 U.S.C. § 706 and the Constitution, against the President, the Director of National Intelligence, the Director of the National Security Agency, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General of the U.S., and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The plaintiff, represented by private counsel, asked the court for declaratory and injunctive relief, claiming that the government's search and seizure of her telephone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, 50 U.S.C. § 1861 violated the Fourth Amendment and 5 U.S.C. § 706. Specifically, the plaintiff claimed that the NSA was monitoring and searching her telephone records without showing first that there was probable cause to believe that she was engaged in criminal behavior.
On November 7, 2013, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint. On December 20, 2013, the plaintiff filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. On January 24, 2014, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim and for lack of jurisdiction.
On June 3, 2014, Judge B. Lynn Winmill granted the defendants' motion to dismiss and denied the plaintiff's motion for injunctive relief. Judge Winmill wrote that there was no Fourth Amendment violation in this case based on precedent, including the Supreme Court case of Smith v Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979), in which the Supreme Court held that a person has no expectation of privacy in the telephone numbers that she dials. Smith v. Obama, 2:13-CV-257-BLW, 2014 WL 2506421 (D. Idaho June 3, 2014). Although the NSA's data gathering goes beyond the telephone numbers dialed, this is still not a violation of the Fourth Amendment because the Ninth Circuit had extended Smith v. Maryland's holding to cover call length and call time, as well. The Court noted, too, that other courts had already found that the NSA is not violating the Fourth Amendment. See A.C.L.U. v Clapper,
NS-NY-0003.and U.S. v. Moalin, U.S. v. Moalin, 2013 WL 6079518 (S.D.Cal. 2013).
Jessica Kincaid - 06/16/2014
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