So much for the ACLU’s suit against the National Security Agency over the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program. Last year, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the Eastern District of Michigan ordered an injunction against the NSA program, an action crucial to the Justice Department’s January announcement that the Bush administration would get out of the warrantless wiretapping business. This morning, Judge Alice Batchelder of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Taylor’s injunction based on the plaintiffs’ (a group of journalists, academics, and lawyers who regularly communicate with individuals located overseas) lack of standing.
Update: This post initially attributed dissenting views on the legality of the warrantless surveillance program to Batchelder’s majority opinion. We deeply regret the error.