USA-(Berberanews)-The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled in favor of the FBI in a case involving discrimination claims brought by three Muslim men from California who accused the agency of illegally spying on them following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The Supreme Court unanimously overruled a lower court finding in 2019 that said the Foreign Intelligence Monitoring Act (FISA), a federal law regulating government surveillance, outweighed the government’s state secrets privilege – a legal defense based on national security considerations.
The case will now be remanded to lower courts for additional proceedings, with the plaintiffs’ claims still pending.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco erred in its approach, with Justice Samuel Alito noting that the FISA provision at issue “does not supplant the state secrets privilege.”
The FBI was accused of entering mainstream mosques in southern California and targeting Muslim Americans for surveillance based on their religion, according to the lawsuit.
It accused the FBI of targeting Muslims in violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, as well as of violating the Fourth Amendment prohibition on excessive searches and seizures.
Yassir Fazaga, an imam at the Orange County Islamic Foundation in Mission Viejo; Ali Uddin Malik, who attended the Islamic Center of Irvine; and Yasser Abdel Rahim, an Egyptian permanent resident who also attended the Islamic Center of Irvine, are the plaintiffs. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others represent them.
