Wednesday, August 15, 2012

State Secrets Privilege Leads To Dismissal Of Suit For Spying On Mosques

The Los Angeles Times reports that yesterday a California federal district court dismissed a class action lawsuit that had been filed against the federal government and the FBI for planting an informant in Orange County, California mosques. The court accepted the government's assertion of the state secrets privilege-- that national security would be endangered by disclosing targets in counter-terrorism investigations. The court, however, permitted claims under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act against individual FBI agents and supervisors to proceed.

UPDATE: The text of the court's opinion in Fazaga v. FBI, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116723 (SD CA, Aug. 14, 2012) is now available.