On Wednesday, Fox News said in a report that US Senator Rand Paul files a lawsuit against US President Barack Obama and several top officials in the intelligence agencies over surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency. The report said the lawsuit was co-filed in the US District Court in the District of Columbia by Paul and conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks.
At a press conference in Washington, Paul said, "This, we believe, will be a historic lawsuit. There's a huge and growing swell of protest in this country of people who are outraged that their records would be taken without suspicion, without a judge's warrant and without individualization."
The lawsuit claimed that the program by NSA, which collects and store massive amount of phone metadata, which includes the time and location stamps of calls made, violates Fourth Amendment rights. Fox News said that the lawsuit is asking the court to rule the said NSA program as unconstitutional and is requesting a court order for the US government to end the intelligence program.
The officials named in the lawsuit aside from Obama are Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, NSA Director Keith Alexander, and Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey.
The White House, on the other hand, said that the privacy of the American people are being protected by programs operated by the NSA, Fox News said. Obama reportedly announced a set of proposed changes that would rein in NSA surveillance.
Referring to earlier court decisions about government surveillance in separate cases. a Justice Department spokesperson said, "We remain confident that the program is legal, as at least 15 judges have previously found."
The lawsuit, however, challenged the legality of the surveillance programs as the bulk metadata that is collected routinely by intelligence agencies, particularly by the NSA, reveals enough of the personal and professional associations about American citizens that are normally unknown to the US government.
