The Supreme Court on Friday sided with the FBI in its effort to block the disclosure of surveillance in Muslim communities in Southern California.
Justices ruled unanimously, saying the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit erred when it said the state secrets privilege used to block information that the U.S. government sees as a danger to national security is displaced by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s procedures for court review of the government’s assertion.
“The absence of any reference to the state secrets privilege in FISA is strong evidence that the availability of the privilege was not altered when Congress passed the Act,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the ruling.
SUPREME COURT SIGNALS WILLINGNESS TO REVIEW FBI ISLAM INFORMANT CASE
Sheikh Yassir Fazaga brought forth the case in 2011, years after he and others first became the target of an FBI investigation dating back to June 2006. An informant wore a wire to religious services attended by Fazaga and obtained video and audio from congregants’ homes. FBI handlers also installed electronic devices in at least eight mosques throughout Orange County.
After the plaintiffs filed their case, the district court maintained in 2012 that it could not consider the claims that the FBI unlawfully targeted Islamic community figures for spying because the agency argued that further proceedings could reveal state secrets. The court of appeals subsequently disagreed and told the district court to examine the plaintiff’s claims under the FISA procedures required by Congress.
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The high court’s ruling on Friday comes just one day after justices denied efforts by a longtime Guantanamo Bay detainee interrogated at CIA black sites around the world to gain access to information about the two men who waterboarded him in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
