The issue focused on whether the U.S. government has a legal responsibility to protect citizens' privacy from government surveillance. A panel of nine civil liberties researchers from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Stanford Research Institute reviewed the law, the courts' rulings on it, and the government's practices in the area of data mining. They found evidence that the government's activities do not comply with the Fourth Amendment.

"In light of the government's collection of millions of Americans' communications