A federal judge in a Chicago terrorism case will let the defence view government applications submitted to a foreign intelligence court seeking permission to conduct secret surveillance, in what the judge says is a first.
Yesterday's pretrial ruling is in Adel Daoud's case. He's denied seeking to detonate a bomb in Chicago in 2012.
The defence has pressed for details on how investigators employed the kind of phone and Internet spying revealed by ex-government contractor Edward Snowden.
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In her five-page opinion, Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman says she knows giving the defence access to applications submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court hasn't been done before. But she says that's not a reason to bar it now.
Daoud attorney Thomas Durkin called the ruling "historic." The US attorney's office declined comment.


