Supreme Court Declines to Review NSA Surveillance Case
In October 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case challenging telecom companies’ cooperation with the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance of American citizens. The decision effectively ended Hepting v. AT&T, a class-action lawsuit originally filed in 2006 by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The court offered no explanation for its refusal.
The lawsuit accused AT&T, along with Verizon and Sprint, of handing over customers’ phone calls, emails, and web browsing histories to the NSA without obtaining court orders. The case was bolstered by testimony from former AT&T technician Mark Klein, who provided internal documents revealing that the NSA was monitoring Americans’ internet traffic from a secret facility in San Francisco.
How Warrantless Wiretapping Became Legal
While the Fourth Amendment ostensibly protects citizens from unreasonable government searches, the legal landscape shifted significantly after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Bush administration launched broad surveillance programs under its anti-terrorism agenda. When lawsuits began challenging these practices, Congress responded by passing the FISA Amendments Act in 2008, which retroactively granted legal immunity to telecom companies that had participated in government-directed surveillance. The original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had established judicial oversight for domestic spying, but the 2008 amendments significantly expanded executive authority in this area.
State Secrets and Government Silence
Both the Bush and Obama administrations maintained that the surveillance program was a state secret, arguing that any disclosure would jeopardize national security. Neither administration confirmed nor denied the specific allegations of warrantless wiretapping. The EFF’s legal director, Cindy Cohn, pushed back against this position, noting that after years of congressional reports, public admissions, and extensive media coverage, the courts remained the one venue where the program’s legality and constitutionality had never been formally evaluated.
A Separate Legal Challenge Moved Forward
Despite the setback in Hepting v. AT&T, the EFF pursued a parallel strategy by suing the government directly rather than targeting telecom intermediaries. Although a district court initially dismissed the case, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived it. Judge Margaret McKeown ruled that the plaintiffs had demonstrated a “concrete injury” rather than presenting abstract grievances, meeting the constitutional threshold for legal standing. That case was scheduled for a December 2012 hearing, keeping the legal battle over mass surveillance alive in the federal courts.
