Court Kills ‘Round-The-Clock’ Surveillance Case

Submitted by MacRonin on November 23, 2009 - 5:50pm

Court Kills ‘Round-The-Clock’ Surveillance Case: Via Threat Level.

Welcome to the tinfoil hat club.

That’s what a federal appeals court is telling Scott Tooley of Kentucky in dismissing his civil rights lawsuit. Tooley believes the government put him under blanket surveillance after he said the word “bomb” to an airline agent.

Tooley sued the government on allegations of invasion of privacy and for violation of his First Amendment speech rights, claiming he was subjected to “round-the-clock surveillance” following his 2002 B-word utterance.

The alleged spying targeting Tooley ranged from phone taps to RFID chips on his vehicles. He claimed he was placed on an airline travel watchlist, and, in 2005, spotted an undercover agent in a Ford Crown Victoria parked outside his Louisville house for about six hours a day.

In throwing out the case Wednesday, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found his allegations amounted to “patently unsubstantial claims” that were “not realistically distinguishable from allegations of ‘little green men.’” (.pdf)

Of course, even if Tooley’s far-out allegations were true, he likely would never prevail.

More solid cases in recent years show that the government would never admit to illegal spying, or even hand over the evidence in the discovery process. And in the rare case a judge doesn’t throw out a lawsuit for “national security” reasons, the government can buy off the plaintiff without admitting guilt.

Consider Tooley’s belief that he’s on a watchlist. Preposterous, right?  But the government, by policy, never admits nor denies anybody is in one of its airline passenger screening databases. And even if the government removes a passenger from a list, only 36 percent of the time does the government provide that data to the airlines (.pdf) –- meaning an untold number of fliers must go through unnecessary secondary screening to board a flight, according to an Inspector General report from September.

All the while, Tooley’s conviction that his mobile and land line phones are being tapped without a warrant might be groundless. But even if the government did illegally wiretap him, and accidentally provided him with documentary evidence proving it, Tooley would wind up in the same boat as the American lawyers who represented the defunct al-Haramain Islamic Foundation. They sued, but the Bush and the Obama administrations declared the documents national security secrets, so far preventing the lawsuit from reaching a jury.

Tooley’s case began in 2002, when Tooley phoned Southwest Airlines to buy tickets to Nebraska. At the end of the call, and after providing his personal details, the agent asked if he had any “comments, questions or suggestions,” according to the suit.

He replied that the airline should “screen 100 percent of everything that went into the airline because he was incredulous that in the wake of the tragedies of September 11, 2001, cargo was, and still is not, fully screened,” according to the complaint.

The agent asked “why such a course of action was necessary.” Tooley replied that the traveling public “was less safe due to the potential that those who wish to harm American citizens could put a bomb on a plane.”

According to his lawsuit, the Southwest representative “became alarmed” and repeatedly declared, “you said the B word.”

About 18 months later, according to the lawsuit, Tooley “began to notice problematic phone connections, including telltale intermittent clicking noises, which still continue to this day.”

Crazy? Sure. But no more so than a spying coffee table.

Photo: unimatrixZxero

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