Two civil liberties groups are edging in on conservative gadfly Larry Klayman’s legal challenge to National Security Agency surveillance.
On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation asked to join in arguments set to be held in November on the government’s appeal of the first and only judicial ruling disputing the constitutionality of the NSA’s program sweeping up information on billions of telephone calls to, from, and within the United States.
The groups asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to allow them 10 minutes of argument time.
The move is the latest step in an effort by the civil liberties organizations to have a hand in as much as possible of the pending litigation related to the NSA’s so-called bulk collection of phone data for counterterrorism purposes. In July, the ACLU and EFF joined the legal team for the appeal of an Idaho nurse’s challenge to the NSA program. The ACLU also brought a suit on its own behalf that is pending before the 2nd Circuit and EFF has several cases pending in California.
One or more of the cases is expected to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
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