A.C.L.U. To Obama Administration: Lawyer Up Over PRISM

[ReadWrite]

   

The next development in the sprawling PRISM scandal may see the Obama Administration in court. The American Civil Liberties Union, as a customer of Verizon, claims that the collection of massive amounts of data by the NSA has violated its First Amendment rights of free speech and association as well as the right of privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.

(Read more: PRISM Fallout Part 2: Companies Will Store More Data Behind The Firewall)

The ACLU, alongside the New York Civil Liberties Union, has filed a constitutional challenge to the program. "The program goes far beyond even the permissive limits set by the Patriot Act and represents a gross infringement of the freedom of association and the right to privacy," wrote Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director. The brief is available in full here.

In related news, Google has asked the U.S. government for permission to add national-security requests for user data it receives under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to its regular transparency report.

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[ReadWrite]