The fight over the NSA warrantless surveillance program has continued quietly in federal courtrooms, and perhaps part of the reason for the quiet has been the results. The NSA has won seventeen challenges to the program thus far:

Defense lawyers who had hoped that the public disclosure a year ago of the National Security Agency's wiretapping program would yield information favorable to their clients are being rebuffed by the federal judiciary, which in a series of unusually consistent rulings has rejected efforts by terrorism suspects to access the records.

In at least 17 criminal cases, federal district judges nominated to the federal bench by presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush have ruled against requests to force the government to tell defendants, most accused of terrorism-related crimes, whether the NSA eavesdropped on them without a court warrant. ...

Still, even in cases in which the NSA program is believed to have played a role, it is not clear that judges would rule any differently. Officials in the Bush administration have credited the NSA program with helping uncover the terrorist plot of an Ohio truck driver, Iyman Faris, to topple the Brooklyn Bridge, according to a New York Times report. In October a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., Leonie Brinkema, declined Faris's request for government documents about the NSA program's role in the case. Last month, Judge Brinkema upheld Faris's guilty plea from 2003, ruling that Faris did not have standing to bring his challenge even if "electronic surveillance" had first led the government to him.

In only one case has a federal appeals court looked at the relationship of the NSA program to criminal prosecutions. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., in April remanded a separate case to Judge Brinkema, questioning whether the government possessed "undisclosed intercepts" that should have been turned over. The case involved a Muslim cleric, Ali al-Timimi, who was found guilty last year of encouraging Muslims to join the Taliban's war efforts.

In only one case has the challenge been upheld. That was the ruling of Anna Diggs Taylor, whose August decision garnered plenty of criticism even from opponents of the NSA's program. Her decision awaits an appellate court decision, which appeared to favor a reversal given the tenor of the court's statement granting the appeal.

I find it fascinating that Taylor's decision drew so much attention, but that the 17 decisions that went the other way have barely cracked the national press. One might suppose that these cases are also under appeal, but we have heard nothing about their existence nor their progress.

Eventually, the Supreme Court will have to rule on this program and its use in prosecutions in order to settle the question. Even if Congress had passed the Arlen Specter compromise, it still would have been challenged through the federal courts. However, I wonder if the press will cover the results if the Supreme Court rules that the NSA's program did not violate the Constitution by tapping into international calls without a warrant. So far, it would seem that the answer will be ... silence.

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