> The first question will be which American citizen was harmed, and what was the harm. A violation of Fourth or Fifth amendment rights constitutes a real harm

> The first question will be which American citizen was harmed, and what was the harm. A violation of Fourth or Fifth amendment rights constitutes a real harm done to a person as far as the courts are concerned. >In addition, merely accessing data at rest does not really do any harm. You'd really need a U.S. citizen who you can prove has been wrongfully arrested or harassed as a direct result of their data being accessed in this way. As far as I'm aware, this isn't a requirement...If you can prove the programs were overly broad, did in fact collect information on citizens illegally (which, by all accounts has already been established as of 2011) you're good. >Simply put, the far, far better option here is to petition Congress. They will respond directly if the public pressure gets high enough. Well, yes...But OP is specifically about the courts