14 DAY TRIAL // The NSA leaks have had a lot of effects, some on the way individuals act when online, some on international relationships of the United States, and others, very few, on how the NSA works. However, perhaps those who have most to win at this point are groups suing the government over the surveillance programs.
For years on end, the US government managed to suppress lawsuits filed by civil liberties groups about various surveillance programs the country runs.
Edward Snowden’s leaks have changed the game and the key elements of the government’s defense started falling like domino pieces.
For instance, one of the main arguments of the Justice Department was that groups suing the government, such as the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) cannot prove they’ve been affected by the surveillance.
As the dozens of reports over the past three months indicate, the situation is no longer the same and the groups seeking to sue the government now have the upper hand in the battle.
“For years, the government has shielded its surveillance practices from judicial review through excessive secrecy. And now that that secrecy has been lifted to some degree, we now know precisely who is being surveilled in some of the dragnet policies of the NSA, and those people can now challenge those policies,” said Alex Abdo, lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, according to The Hill.
Since the Snowden leaks put the spotlight on the gigantic dragnet programs sweeping up everybody’s data, it’s now easier for plaintiffs to show they are indeed being watched without a reason by the NSA.
Of course, if the cases will actually go somewhere, considering they’re suing the United States government and not some run-of-the-mill group, remains to be seen.