There are two related things that make Americans wildly uncomfortable: international terrorism and mass surveillance. To some, the Patriot Act and FISA Amendments Act are as loathed as ISIS. But, when one is effective in the opposition and suppression of the other, the appropriate reaction becomes blurry. Is the constitutional gray area in which these acts exist worth casting communication fishnets in the hopes of trawling a few dissenters into jail cells?

The FISA Amendments Act revised the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allowed the mass interception of phone calls and emails of foreign individuals, despite whether they are communicating with an American citizen or not. It was not until 2013, after an internal Justice Department debate, that the accused were notified how they collected this evidence, obscuring the shady surveillance methodology.

But, with the case of Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab, this issue has been shifted into the public eye. The accused is an Iraqi refugee who came to United States in October 2012 and now faces charges of providing materially false or fictitious statements about his history involving “rebel or militia” groups when being interviewed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The penalties for this type of charge carry a maximum sentence of eight years and a fine of $250,000.

Though he claims he had traveled to Turkey in 2013 and 2014 to visit his grandmother, evidence of his communication with foreign individuals and posts made on social networks, collected under the FISA Amendments Act, tell of his potential involvement with Ansar al-Islam, according to the Justice Department.

Though the distinction between terror groups and nationalist struggles are sometimes murky, Ansar al-Islam seems to be the real deal. The group is known through its stringent opposition to the American invasion of Iraq and continues to fight the Iraqi government after U.S. withdrawal, and factions of Ansar al-Islam have merged with ISIS.

Perhaps Al-Jayab visited his grandmother. If the information collected through the FISA Amendments prove to be false, is government intimidation of American individuals through the sphere of mass surveillance that envelops the nation worth it?

Or perhaps this individual did arm himself to fight alongside terrorist organizations and came back the U.S. disillusioned and intent on living a complacent, placid life. Or, in the worst case hypothetical, he returned to U.S. soil to perpetuate those violent ideals. A discreet electronic eye affixed on every American hardly seems worth the prospect of nabbing a few suspected terrorists on charges of lying to the U.S. Immigration Services.

These are all questions and points of contention that should be answered by a court higher than the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The defense of Al-Jayab intends on challenging the evidence, but the odds do not seem to be in its favor. According to the New York Times, there have been three other cases in the same vein where the defense challenged the constitutionality of the evidence collected through these methods; all three failed in that defense.

Given that the method with which this information is obtained was hidden from public view until 2013, and that the constitutionality of this surveillance methodology has been challenged on an individual case basis numerous times since the program has been made public, it’s time that the privacy issue is revisited, this time in the highest court in the U.S.

Privacy advocates have been calling for the program to be addressed in the Supreme Court, and the Daily Iowan Editorial Board would like to join them in that call.