The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to entertain a petition brought by a political activist challenging the constitutionality of the NSA's bulk metadata telephone surveillance program.
A lower court ruled in December that the plaintiffs, including activist Larry Klayman, had “the standing to challenge the constitutionality” of the government's bulk collection of phone record metadata and had, “demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their Fourth Amendment claim.”
Klayman decided to bypass the federal appellate court and petition before the Supreme Court instead. While it is not unheard of for the high court to take cases before they've made their way through the federal appeals process, it is unlikely. And in this case, the Court's justices failed to act on petition, which will in effect send Klayman and his co-plaintiffs to appeal to a federal court.
