Nicholas Iovino reports:
A federal judge signaled Friday that he may end more than a decade of litigation over the government’s mass surveillance program because advancing the lawsuit could threaten national security.
“The court is concerned that it has reached the point that further litigation poses a not insignificant risk of disclosure of national security information and resulting grave harm to national security,” U.S. District Judge Jeffry White said during a hearing Friday.
A Justice Department lawyer implored the judge not to decide whether five plaintiffs have standing to sue the government. A ruling on that issue would expose whether the National Security Agency collected the plaintiffs’ internet and phone data, a disclosure the government says will imperil state secrets.
“It would result in a classified fact coming out in the public record,” Justice Department lawyer Rodney Patton told the judge.
Read more on Courthouse News.
If the judge does end the case, he will do more harm to national security than allowing the case to go forward. Our national security is threatened by our inability to trust our government not to engage in inappropriate surveillance. Let the case go forward and let us see what our government actually did.