From New York Public Radio, this is the podcast of On The Media.

On The Media is produced by WNYC and heard across America on NPR stations.

Visit On Themedia.org to find your local public radio station.

This podcast is made possible by WNYC and its listeners.

Please help support this free service by becoming a member at WNYC.org.

Thank you. service by becoming a member at WNYC.org. From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

Bob Garfield is out this week.

I'm Rick Carr.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

This week, the first of what's likely to be many legal challenges to the NSA spying program. On Tuesday, the American Civil

Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, each filed civil lawsuits

charging the government with violating the constitutional rights of a group of lawyers, academics,

activists, and journalists. The plaintiffs can't prove that they were the targets of the

secret surveillance, but insist that because of the type of people they routinely communicate

with, they have good reason to believe they have been monitored. Meanwhile, a number of

criminal defendants are asking if the

NSA wiretapping has been wrongfully used against them. Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley

is among those who think the Bush administration severely overstepped its bounds with the NSA program

and said as much in a Democratic congressional hearing on Friday, Turley is also

involved in one of the prominent criminal cases I just mentioned. Jonathan, welcome back to the show.

Thank you very much. So let's talk first about the ACLU lawsuit. The big question here seems to be,

what gives these folks the standing to sue if they have no actual evidence that they were

...