Clapper v.

Amnesty International Facts: The Federal International Surveillance Act (FISA) set up a system of courts to determine when surveillance of foreign communications could be conducted. After 9/11 Congress expanded the law with a provision making it easier to obtain permission to conduct such surveillance. The respondents in this case are American or international Groups. They do not claim that they would directly be at risk here, but rather that their communications with their sources, clients etc. would be at risk of being spied on, and that to prevent this they would have to implement costly security measures. Issue: Do respondents have Article III standing to seek prospective relief under the FISA? If so, are the new FISA provisions unconstitutional? Rationale: The respondents do not claim to be directly at risk from this law The respondents only are claiming to be implementing costly security measures because of a risk of possible surveillance of their conversations. In Article III of the Constitution the powers of the Court is limited to Cases and Controversies The issue here is if this case qualifies as such. [n]o principle is more fundamental to the judiciarys proper role in our system of government than the constitutional limitation of federal-court jurisdiction to actual cases or controversies. DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno One element of the case-or-controversy requirement is that plaintiffs must establish that they have standing to sue. Raines v. Byrd [o]ur standing inquiry has been especially rigorous when reaching the merits of the dispute would force us to decide whether an action taken by one of the other two branches of the Federal Government was unconstitutional. Raines v. Byrd What all this basically means is that there was written into the Constitution a separation of powers. In order for the Supreme Court to ensure that it does not overstep its power it must make sure that it is carful to ensure that the cases it decides on other branches rulings indeed have standing. This means that in order for someone to have standing they must be able to show that the law would harm them in a way that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent; fairly traceable to the challenged action; and redressable by a favorable ruling. Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms While imminent is definitely a broad term it has been interpreted later to mean that the threatened injury must be certainly impending to constitute injury in fact, Whitmore v. Arkansas and that it cannot be [a]llegations of possible future injury Whitmore v. Arkansas

The entirety of the fear that the respondents have is based around one long chain of possibilities: o The Government must decide to target the specific people that are not in the US that are communicating with these groups o The Government must choose to use the authority under 1881a and not another type of surveillance o The Judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court must decide that they are valid in this surveillance and approve it. o The Government has to actually be successful in the surveillance o The respondents must be part of some of the conversations the government intercepts If that long chain of events does not play out then the respondents are in no danger of damage under the law. That chain is long and convoluted and it would be crazy to assume that the respondents are in immediate danger of being hurt under this law. The Respondents have no evidence their communications have been or will be monitored under 1881a. Also relevant is the fact that 1881a only authorizes such surveillance, it does not require it in any way so potentially all these issues will never come up if the law where never used, calling into question if there is any risk from this law. The other potential harm cited by the respondents to establish standing is the self inflicted harm of upping their security measures and the like. This is done by them to themselves based on conjecture of risk from the law. That cannot be enough to establish standing.