Officials Didn’t Violate 4th Amendment With Foreign Surveillance, 2nd Circuit Rules

The U.S. government didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment when it incidentally collected communications of a U.S. citizen through a foreign surveillance program, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday in U.S. v. Hasbajrami. Agron Hasbajrami was arrested at JFK airport in New York in 2011 and charged with attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization. The prosecution partly relied on information gathered without warrant under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702, which Hasbajrami sought to suppress under the Fourth Amendment. The case was remanded to the district court. The American Civil Liberties Union disagreed with the 2nd Circuit's ruling that “NSA can collect Americans’ international communications without a warrant, [but] the court rightly finds that the Fourth Amendment applies when the government searches for that sensitive information in intelligence databases,” said National Security Project staff attorney Patrick Toomey.