Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1 (1972), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court dismissed for lack of ripeness a claim in which the plaintiff accused the U.S. Army of alleged unlawful "surveillance of lawful citizen's political activity."

[3] The Court determined that the plaintiff's claim was based on the fear that sometime in the future the Army might cause harm with information retrieved during their surveillance; and that there was no present threat.

When an intelligence officer looks over every nonconformist's shoulder in the library or walks invisibly by his side in a picket line, or infiltrates his club, the America once extolled as the voice of liberty heard around the world no longer is cast in the image which Jefferson and Madison designed, but more in the Russian image.The dismissal of the case was made possible by the timely nomination by Richard Nixon of Assistant Attorney General William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court.

Rehnquist had previously testified to Senator Sam Ervin's committee that there were no 'serious constitutional problems with respect to collecting data or keeping under surveillance persons who are merely exercising their right of a peaceful assembly or petition to redress a grievance.'

After a petition for rehearing was filed based on his participation, Rehnquist issued a memorandum[4] stating that the attack on his impartiality was essentially a criticism of his conservative judicial philosophy and that there had been no actual bias towards the litigant.