PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge has affirmed the legality of the U.S. government’s bulk collection of phone and email data from foreign nationals living outside the country — including their contact with U.S. citizens — in denying a man’s motion to dismiss his terrorism conviction.
It was the first legal challenge to the government’s bulk data-collection program of non-U.S. citizens living overseas after revelations about massive, warrantless surveillance were made public by former National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden.
The program also sweeps up information about U.S. citizens who have contact with overseas suspects. This type of surveillance played a key role in this case.
Lawyers for Mohamed Mohamud, a U.S. citizen who lived in Oregon, tried to show the program violated his constitutional rights and was more broadly unconstitutional. U.S. District 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. “Dismissal is not warranted here.”
Mohamud’s attorneys argued that such a failure withheld important information from the defense team.
