Judge rules bulk surveillance legal

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A federal judge on Tuesday affirmed the legality of the U.S. government's bulk phone and email data collection of foreigners living outside the country -- as well as their contact with U.S. citizens -- in denying a man's motion to dismiss his terrorism conviction.

Lawyers for Mohamed Mohamud, a U.S. citizen who lived in Oregon, tried to show the program was unconstitutional. U.S. District Court Judge Garr King on Tuesday denied that effort.

The ruling also upheld Mohamud's conviction on terrorism charges. In his decision, King rejected the argument from Mohamud's attorneys that prosecutors failed to notify Mohamud of information derived under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act until he was already convicted.

Suppressing the evidence collected "and a new trial would put defendant in the same position he would have been in if the government notified him of the [surveillance] at the start of the case," King wrote.

Mohamud's attorneys had argued that the prosecutors withheld important information from the defense team.

Mohamud was convicted last year of attempting to detonate a fake bomb at Portland's Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in 2010 in what turned out to be an FBI sting.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act permits the U.S. government to sweep up information regarding foreigners "reasonably believed" to be outside the U.S. But it also includes the incidental collection of data from U.S. citizens communicating with people in other countries.

That was the case with Mohamud, whose email communications with two terror suspects were used as evidence at his trial. Both of those men, U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, were killed in drone strikes in 2011 after the U.S. classified them as enemy combatants.

A Section on 06/25/2014