Supreme Court blocks challenge to anti-terrorism law

Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON -- One of the most controversial anti-terrorism laws passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks may be beyond normal judicial review, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

In a 5-4 decision, the court's conservative justices ruled that lawyers, journalists, human rights activists and others lacked standing to challenge a law passed in 2008 that increases the government's ability to intercept international communications.

The plaintiffs had contended that even the potential of government snooping – which, they said, would violate the Fourth Amendment – was forcing them to change the way they communicate with clients and sources.

The question before the high court wasn't whether the law itself, passed near the end of the Bush administration, was constitutional. It was whether those challenging it even had the ability to find out.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2013/02/26/supreme-court-wiretapping-surveillance-foreign-intelligence/1948569/