The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the NSA’s spy programs.
The EFF is representing 19 diverse groups including Free Press, the Free Software Foundation, Greenpeace, the Callguns Foundation and the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles.
The lawsuit accuses the authorities of violating the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of the groups and its members by gaining access to their phone records.
“The First Amendment protects the freedom to associate and express political views as a group, but the NSA’s mass, untargeted collection of Americans’ phone records violates that right by giving the government a dramatically detailed picture into our associational ties,” EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn says.
“Who we call, how often we call them, and how long we speak shows the government what groups we belong to or associate with, which political issues concern us, and our religious affiliation,” Cohn adds
“Exposing this information – especially in a massive, untargeted way over a long period of time – violates the Constitution and the basic First Amendment tests that have been in place for over 50 years.”
The EFF seeks confirmation that the NSA surveillance programs violate the constitution and demands that they are stopped.
