Are we only talking about broad surveillance that is not targeted at specific people, or are we also talking about surveillance where some agency got a warrant to spy on a particular person or place?
For instance, if the FBI gets a warrant to bug the office of the head of the Gambino crime family, should he be able to sue to find that out?
All these questions fall flat when the federal government can slap 'national security secret' on anything.
Suffice to say the government will pull out all stops to combat your legal challenge, the judicial branch will side with them for obvious reasons, and your congressional representative will send you a canned response detailing how it's for the children/for fighting terrorists/none of your business.
"For instance, if the FBI gets a warrant to bug the office of the head of the Gambino crime family, should he be able to sue to find that out?"
Consider the alternative: vast, unconstitutional surveillance that can never be challenged in a court because you have no legal way to prove that your rights are being violated. Oh, wait, that would be the world we live in right now.
The problem here is that we have wandered so far down the "law and order" road that we have forgotten that we have civil rights. Yes, if we defend our civil rights and if we allow people to challenge violations of their rights, there will be criminals who escape justice. Our entire criminal justice system is meant to protect the innocent despite the risk of allowing the guilty to go free.
It's more like the FBI bugged every office in the city, but only listened in on suspicious people (which probably includes the Gambinos), so nobody is allowed to complain about it since the chances of any given individual being suspicious are negligible.
For instance, if the FBI gets a warrant to bug the office of the head of the Gambino crime family, should he be able to sue to find that out?