Al-Haramain v. Obama, 690 F.3d 1089 (9th Cir. 2012)^[1] was a case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California filed 28 February 2006 by the al-Haramain Foundation and its two attorneys concerning the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy.^[2] The case withstood retroactive changes brought by the Congressional response to the NSA warrantless surveillance program.^[3]

In 2004 during proceedings to freeze al-Haramain Foundation, an Oregon Nonprofit Corporation, the government inadvertently gave the organization classified documents that suggest the foundation was subject to electronic surveillance. Al-Harmain and their two attorneys filed a lawsuit claiming violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act via unlawful surveillance, based on the classified documents that the government gave Al-Harmain. The district court found that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act preempted the state secrets privilege and waived sovereign immunity for damages under 50 U.S.C.S. § 1810.

On March 31, 2010, Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker granted partial summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs,^[4] because 50 U.S.C.S. § 1810 has no explicit waiver of sovereign immunity, and on 21 December awarded $2.5 million in attorneys' fees and about $41,000 to two of the three plaintiffs.^[5][6] The court affirm the dismissal of claims against Mueller.

The district court was reversed and the case was subsequently dismissed by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on August 7, 2012.^[1]