EFF, ACLU Sup­port Smith in Fight­ing Mass Sur­veil­lance Before Ninth Circuit

Seat­tle — An appeals court will hear oral argu­ments in Smith v. Oba­ma, a case filed by an Ida­ho nurse against a con­tro­ver­sial Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Agency (NSA) tele­phone data col­lec­tion pro­gram, in Seat­tle on Mon­day, Dec. 8.

Anna Smith, a neona­tal nurse from Coeur d’A­lene, filed her law­suit against Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and sev­er­al U.S. intel­li­gence agen­cies in June 2013, short­ly after the gov­ern­ment con­firmed that the NSA was col­lect­ing tele­phone records on a mas­sive scale under Sec­tion 215 of the Patri­ot Act. Smith, a Ver­i­zon cus­tomer, argues the pro­gram vio­lat­ed her Fourth Amend­ment rights by amass­ing a wealth of detail about her famil­ial, polit­i­cal, pro­fes­sion­al, reli­gious, and inti­mate asso­ci­a­tions. Fol­low­ing a dis­trict court rul­ing against Smith, the Elec­tron­ic Fron­tier Foun­da­tion (EFF), the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) and the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union of Ida­ho joined the case as co-coun­sel in July 2014 to assist in craft­ing the appeal.

Anna Smith’s hus­band, Peter Smith of Lukins & Annis, P.S., who filed the case and argued on Anna’s behalf to the tri­al court, will present oral argu­ments before a pan­el of three judges (Hon. Michael Daly Hawkins, Hon. M. Mar­garet McK­e­own, and Hon. Richard C. Tall­man) at the Unit­ed States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

EFF pre­sent­ed appel­late oral argu­ments in a sim­i­lar case, Klay­man v. Oba­ma, last month. On Dec. 18, EFF will present argu­ments in San Fran­cis­co in Jew­el v. NSA, ask­ing the court to find that the NSA’s mass copy­ing of Inter­net com­mu­ni­ca­tions vio­lates the Fourth Amend­ment. EFF’s oth­er chal­lenge to NSA sur­veil­lance, First Uni­tar­i­an Church of Los Ange­les v. NSA, remains pend­ing before a tri­al judge.

What: Oral Argu­ment in Smith v. Obama

Who: Peter Smith, coun­sel for Anna Smith

Date: Mon­day, Dec. 8, 2014

Time: 9:00 am PT (Smith is third on the calendar)

Where: William K. Naka­mu­ra Courthouse
7th Floor, Court­room 2
1010 Fifth Ave.
Seat­tle, WA 98104

EFF and ACLU staff will be avail­able for inter­views fol­low­ing the arguments.

For Smith’s appel­late briefs:

https://eff.org/document/opening-brief‑0

https://eff.org/document/smiths-reply-brief

Con­tact:
Dave Maass
Media Rela­tions Coordinator
Elec­tron­ic Fron­tier Foundation
[email protected]

Relat­ed Cases
Smith v. Obama
First Uni­tar­i­an Church of Los Ange­les v. NSA
Jew­el v. NSA
Klay­man v. Obama