Suing the spooks: NSA wiretap blowback.

• Author: Sanchez, Julian
• Position: TOP SECRET; National Security Agency - Brief article

IT'S HARD TO mount a legal challenge to a highly classified government eavesdropping program when the list of potential plaintiffs is a state secret. So in order to challenge the National Security Agency's controversial program of warrantless wiretaps, the American Civil Liberties Union has assembled a group of journalists, academics, lawyers, and activists who argue that the program's very existence infringes on their First Amendment rights.

Because courts have recognized that free speech rights "require breathing space to survive," ACLU staff attorney Jameel Jaffer explains, they have often granted standing to challenge laws that burden those rights based on indirect chilling effects. Jaffer argues that since the disclosure of the NSA program his clients have been hampered in their communications with sources abroad, who may fear their confidential conversations will be subject to "indiscriminate, unchecked...