“The American Civil Liberties Union sued senior U.S. government officials on Tuesday to challenge the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s telephone surveillance program, saying it violates rights to free speech and privacy. The suit asked the court to immediately halt the NSA’s vast tracking program of telephone calls, declare the program illegal, and order the U.S. government to purge all databases of the call records. The ACLU suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York named James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, and the leaders of the NSA, the Defense Department, the Justice Department and the FBI.”
