It's been reported before how Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. told the Supreme Court no one had standing to challenge warrantless electronic surveillance because no criminal defendants had yet been caught by the program. Despite Verrilli's assurances to the court that defendants would receive notice if the evidence against them derived from warrantless surveillance, the Department of Justice was not giving any such notices. The Intercept notes that Verrilli himself might not have known at the time that the DOJ wasn't providing notice, and he successfully argued for a change in policy. But Dan Novack, writing in The Intercept, asks why the solicitor general has not yet corrected the record in the U.S. Supreme Court: " Lawyers have an ethical obligation to speak with candor to tribunals, especially when representing the government. Amazingly, Verrilli has managed to remain silent throughout this controversy. It’s past time we heard from him directly."
Lawyer and Legal Journalist
