that sound you are hearing ...

... is the sound of your constitutional rights being flushed away. A lawsuit against warrantless wiretaps has been dismissed by a federal appeals court. Why? Because the ACLU and others that brought the case don't have standing because they couldn't prove they had been placed under clandestine surveillance.

So according to this court's thinking, only if you can PROVE you're being spied on can you sue against the legality of this program. That is a very narrow, conservative, authoritarian attitude completely at odds with American democracy.

But feel free to sue if the domestic spooks spying on you are clumsy and ineffective enough that you can prove they're doing it.