Ken Cuccinelli: Supreme Court Will Define NSA Boundaries

The U.S. Supreme Court will eventually weigh the scope of the National Security Agency's surveillance powers, former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli believes.

Cuccinelli, lead counsel for Sen. Rand Paul in the Kentucky lawmaker's class-action lawsuit against President Barack Obama and the NSA, predicted the high court will hear either Paul's or someone else's suit.

"At some point, one of these cases is going to get to the Supreme Court," Cuccinelli told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

"That's where it's really going to be decided in terms of the ultimate scope of our Fourth Amendment protection."

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Paul and the libertarian group FreedomWorks filed the suit this week, asking the federal court to stop the NSA's sweeping collection of phone data and destroy what already been collected since 2006.

Cuccinelli, who unsuccessfully ran in the Virginia gubernatorial race last year, admits the process will be a slow one.

"We are going through the process in the usual fashion. I expect in about two months we'll see motions to dismiss filed by the government and those will be briefed and argued I would expect this summer," he said.

"If we get by the motion to dismiss, we would then engage in some discoveries … not the kind of sweeping we-want-everything-you've-got kind of approach … but a good targeted hit to determine exactly what they're doing….

"We'll then move to summary judgment which will decide the case and whoever loses of course will appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals."

Asked if he would seek to depose the president and other top White House officials, Cuccinelli told Steve Malzberg:

"I expect that we will take some depositions. The depositions would be targeted to people with functional knowledge, not necessary targeting people with high position.

"What's more important to us is to get to the nuts and bolts of what's been going on here, not to put anybody on the spot for the sake of putting them on the spot."

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