A federal judge Tuesday threw out a lawsuit filed against the U.S. government and the FBI over the agency's spying on Orange County Muslims, ruling that allowing the suit to go forward would risk divulging sensitive state secrets.

Comparing himself to Odysseus navigating between a six-headed monster and a deadly whirlpool, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney wrote that "the state secrets privilege may unfortunately mean the sacrifice of individual liberties for the sake of national security."

The judge wrote that he reached the decision reluctantly after reviewing confidential declarations filed by top FBI officials, and that he was convinced that the operation in question involved "intelligence that, if disclosed, would significantly compromise national security."

Carney allowed the suit to stand against individual FBI agents under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows those who were improperly subjected to electronic surveillance to sue.

The lawsuit was centered around the actions of Craig Monteilh, who alleges that he posed as a Muslim convert at the behest of the FBI to collect information at Orange County mosques. The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Council on American-Islamic Relations sued on behalf of community members who alleged that the FBI engaged in a "dragnet" investigation that indiscriminately targeted Muslims based on their religion, planted bugs in offices and homes, and listened in on private religious conversations.
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