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The question [in Clapper v. Amnesty International USA] is whether the plaintiffs have standing to challenge a U.S. government surveillance program when they are not able to prove that they have been or are likely to be targeted. The law of standing, I think, is another example of the phenomenon Sunstein highlights: originalist Justices applying a doctrine without discussing its originalist roots. For example, modern standing law has its conventional doctrinal statement in the 1992 decision Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (written by Justice Scalia). But Lujan doesn't say anything about the historical/originalist foundations of standing. And arguably, it not only applies prior standing doctrine but extends it (or at least rationalizes it) in a way that further limits access to courts in certain types of cases.
True, the Constitution's text (Article III, Section 2) requires a "Case[]" or "Controvers[y]" to invoke a federal court's jurisdiction. Advisory opinions are not allowed. But one would need to go a ways beyond the text to see why the Clapper case isn't a case or controversy. (There's no doubt, for example, that the parties are adverse and the plaintiffs have a strong commitment to their claim). Clapper thus raises interesting questions about the original understanding of standing -- and difficult ones, I expect, because my guess is that claims like this simply weren't made in the eighteenth century, so it's hard to know how the Constitution should regard them. Based on past standing cases, though, it seems likely the Justices won't explore the history -- which in turn raises again the question of when and whether it is appropriate for an originalist Justice to apply a doctrine without considering the adequacy of its original foundation.

