The New York Times reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is potentially setting up, for the first time, a Supreme Court test of whether it’s constitutional to notify a criminal defendant that evidence against him came from wiretapping. Additionally, the department’s National Security Division is looking through closed cases to find other defendants who faced similar evidence that resulted from a 2008 wiretapping law—which allowed eavesdropping on suspects without a warrant when the communications crossed borders, the report states. Columbia University Law Prof. Daniel Richman said, “It’s of real legal importance that components of the Justice Department disagreed about when they had a duty to tell a defendant that the surveillance program was used … It’s a big deal because one view covers so many more cases than the other, and this is an issue that should have come up repeatedly over the years.” (Registration may be required to access this story.)
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