A communications company attempting to sidestep government surveillance...

A communications company attempting to sidestep government surveillance orders failed earlier this year, according to documents the Justice Department released Friday about phone surveillance (http://1.usa.gov/S2LojW). According to Justice and the declassified documents, a communications provider petitioned the government Jan. 22 to “vacate, modify or affirm” the Patriot Act Section 215 request, which involves passing along phone metadata of customers to the government for surveillance purposes. The provider pointed to the December decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, issued as part of a case brought by activist Larry Klayman, that said phone surveillance was likely unconstitutional, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court shot down this argument in an order on March 20 and called that previous court decision “unpersuasive.” The FISC upheld the 1979 Supreme Court case Smith v. Maryland as the guiding case in this instance.