The race to bring NSA surveillance to the Supreme Court
There are at least three pending cases against the agency with a shot at making it all the way
Mike Taylor, who lives in
Dublin, Georgia, says the National Security Agency has been watching him
since 2006. He knows because they communicate with him. "They talk to
me on a daily basis," he explains evenly over the phone. "They insult my
looks. They insult my intelligence. They use racial slurs against me."
He didn’t know why he was being
surveilled, however, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act request
to find out. When the NSA blew him off with its infamous boilerplate
"neither confirm or deny" letter, he filed a lawsuit. Last month, a judge ruled against him.
I found Taylor’s case while
sifting through the dozens of federal lawsuits that have been filed
against the NSA since former government contractor Edward Snowden
started leaking internal documents. Many are written by hand and filed
from mental institutions. Most get dismissed for frivolousness, but
somehow Taylor got all the way through to a ruling. He even has a chance
to appeal.
It’s unlikely that the NSA is spying on Taylor and calling him names. But you could argue that he has a case. ........
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