The government has made abundantly clear they don't care....

Along with the 1st, and 5th-8th.

This will go to SCOTUS. Then we'll just be rid of the 4th Amendment altogether.

they have proof the NSA actually broke the law.

I remember that the government tried to have the case dismissed for lack of evidence and that didn't work.

I don't know what to hope. I don't trust this SCOTUS but I don't want this ruling to stand.

I, and others here, predicted that this, along with the Klayman suit, would ultimately fail due to lack of standing. Someone's gonna have to show damages in order for this to grow legs - and it's doubtful there's a plaintiff who can.

...even when monetary damages could not be quantified, there used to be a concept in law that awarded a very small amount, "nominal damages," just to convey that the violations were illegal. Find the plaintiff's allegations true, award the plaintiff $1 just so there is the opportunity to tell the government to knock off unconstitutional conduct.

Now we are probably in a situation where a plaintiff must prove the NSA used illegally intercepted information to blackmail a plaintiff--the blackmail would amount to quantifiable economic damages and thus fulfill the court's standing requirements. Of course the NSA has quite the interest, and means, in making it impossible to prove that kind of blackmail or extortion, and it certainly won't be ordered to reveal anything of the sort in discovery when it can just get the suits thrown out for lack of standing (even when there should be, it can deny that evidence that would prove standing even exists, and the court is none the wiser), so we have a chicken and egg problem here.

In the meantime, the government can continue to violate YOUR constitutional rights with impunity, so long as it doesn't accidentally "leak" any evidence that you could use to trace economic damages.

(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, just an increasingly concerned citizen)

or someone else has to have evidence it happened to them but a lawsuit filed based upon the a possibility that they did it probably wont stand up well to a challenge as the court will probably look at it as a fishing expedition.

In order to have standing, you must have evidence showing harm, which can take many forms. None of the plaintiffs in either of these suits have alleged damages. No damages, no standing.

The allegation is generally that the NSA is on such a broad fishing expedition that everyone in the country, every person and every organization, is harmed because literally every person's constitutional rights regarding unreasonable search and seizures are being violated.

If the NSA intercepts every communication, including domestic, then theoretically everyone should have standing because everyone has been harmed by the blanket search, a search that meets no particularity requirement whatsoever. Everyone has been harmed by a loss of constitutional rights if the allegations in the suit are true. The courts, however, rule for the NSA in these situations, because no one individual can prove that they were specifically searched at a specific time, let alone that the search was not reasonable. Therefore, no standing. Of course the NSA would love to keep the situation where they can search anyone's communications, for any or no reason, and that person cannot prove that they have been searched, going in perpetuity. This kind of logic, IMO, turns the particularity requirement for searches on its head.

It's a situation where discovery is necessary to prove a specific harm to a specific person at a specific time, but there can be no discovery because the NSA has the suit tossed for lack of standing before discovery can occur. Hence my belief that someone will have to eventually prove the NSA specifically blackmailed or extorted them to be successful in suing them to stop their dragnet surveillance. The courts obviously don't like the "dragnet searches harm everyone" argument, so someone will have to come forward alleging a very specific harm done to them personally and absent the economic harm stemming from a blackmail attempt I don't see how that is possible given the present level of secrecy and protection the courts are willing to afford the NSA.

There's also theoretically another way to end this--Congressional investigations and appropriate reforms--but sadly that won't happen until 2016 at the very earliest and likely after the next un-gerrymandering opportunity in 2020. If Congress can't get off its ass to investigate NSA/CIA hacking of its own communications, it sure as hell isn't going to investigate anything on behalf of us little people. (Except Benghazi.)

not when the judge - and that includes the FISA judges - will rubber stamp them every time.
The curtain is going up. Show's over.

On July 25, 2002, White was nominated by President George W. Bush to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California vacated by Charles A. Legge. White was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 14, 2002, and received commission on November 15, 2002.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_White

This -- from the same Wikipedia article:

In February 2008, White shut down the ISP for the American mirror of the Website WikiLeaks. The basis for this action was a claim by the Swiss banking group Julius Baer. On February 18, 2008, White approved an agreement between Dynadot and Baer (an injunction based on stipulation);[1][2] this action garnered news coverage around the world.[3][4]

This order was widely criticized as both improper (prior restraint is generally prohibited by the First Amendment) and ineffective (Wikileaks' web servers are in Sweden, and numerous mirrors exist).[5]

White vacated the injunction on February 29, 2008, citing First Amendment concerns and questions about legal jurisdiction.[6] Wikileaks was thus able to bring its site online again. The bank dropped the case on March 5, 2008.[7] The judge also denied the bank's request for an order prohibiting the website's publication.[8]

Bush appointee.