"Subjective Fear of Surveillance"

A federal district court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the National Security Agency.

  Guardian

Of course it has.

The plaintiffs included Wikipedia, the Nation magazine, Amnesty International and six other organizations, who alleged that the interception and storage of their communications by the NSA violated their constitutional protections against unwarranted search and seizure.

"Constitutional protections." (See * below.)

The judge in the case, TS Ellis III, said the suit relied on “the subjective fear of surveillance”, because the NSA did not admit to having collected any of the information it was alleged to have collected by the ACLU.

Seroiusly. W.T.F.???  If they don't admit it, they're clean?  Is that why we use torture and trickery to extract admissions of guilt?  Actually, that's what a convicted bank robber once told me:  "Whatever the police accuse you of on the stand - deny, deny, deny."

Ellis is a former navy aviator who in 2006 dismissed a suit against the CIA brought by a German man who accused the agency of abducting and torturing him as part of the US “extraordinary rendition” program. Notably, Ellis dismissed the case not on merit, but on the grounds that a trial would risk national security.

And this guy is NOT called an "activist judge."


*

Doug Thompson, publisher of Capitol Hill Blue, says he’s talked to three people present last month when Republican Congressional leaders met with President Bush in the Oval Office to talk about renewing the Patriot Act.[...] All three GOP politicians quote their president as saying: "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!"  Source

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.