Rand Paul Plots NSA Class-Action Lawsuit Options
The anti-surveillance senator has recruited 'hundreds of thousands' of plaintiffs

By Steven Nelson
December 17, 2013 RSS Feed Print
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/17/rand-paul-plots-nsa-...
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., speaks with the news media after delivering a speech at the Detroit Economic Club on Dec. 6, 2013, in Detroit, Michigan.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is "much more likely" to file a lawsuit against the National Security Agency after a Monday court ruling.

After months of consideration, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is moving closer to filing a lawsuit in federal court against National Security Agency surveillance programs.

A senior Paul staffer says U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon's Monday decision that NSA opponents have standing to sue over the bulk collection of phone records makes Paul "much more likely" to file his own lawsuit.

[READ: Judge Orders NSA to Stop Collecting Phone Records]

The senior staffer, who spoke with U.S. News on background, says hundreds of thousands of people volunteered online as possible plaintiffs after Paul first floated the idea of a class-action lawsuit in June.

The senator has not firmly decided to file suit and it's still possible Paul will choose to instead assist with three already-filed lawsuits against the NSA.

If Paul does file a lawsuit it would be the fourth major legal attack against the NSA's bulk collection and five-year storage of American phone records.


Lawsuits against the phone-record collection are already filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, by conservative legal activist Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch in Washington, D.C., and by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco.