COEUR d'ALENE - Oral arguments before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are scheduled for Dec. 8 in a North Idaho nurse's legal challenge to the federal government's bulk collection of Americans' phone records.

Coeur d'Alene attorney Peter Smith will be arguing in Seattle in front of the three-judge panel, representing his wife, Anna Smith, a neonatal nurse and Verizon Wireless customer. Verizon was one of the companies ordered to disclose records to the National Security Agency.

The Smiths filed the lawsuit against President Barack Obama and several U.S. intelligence agencies after the government confirmed revelations that the NSA was collecting the data under the Patriot Act.

Peter Smith said Friday the collection and storage of the phone records violates the Fourth Amendment.

"The question comes down to: Should the government be able to get this information and keep it?" he said. "Or should it be left with the private companies?"

Once the government has all the data, that gives it power, he said. It comes down to the possession of the records, he said.

"We don't trust the government," he said.

U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Winmill dismissed Anna Smith's case. Winmill determined the legal precedent from the 1979 U.S. Supreme Court case Smith v. Maryland - about targeted phone surveillance - tied his hands.

"He followed the law as he understood it," Peter Smith said.

The Smiths appealed to the Ninth Circuit.

Peter Smith said Smith v. Maryland shouldn't apply in his case, which is Smith v. Obama.

The American Civil Liberties Union, both in Idaho and the national organization, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation joined Anna and Peter Smith in their legal challenge.

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, Mark Udall and Martin Heinrich - who are all members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - filed a court brief last month in support of the Smiths.

"An individual order for the phone records of a suspected terrorist and anyone in contact with that suspect could be served on multiple phone companies simultaneously and be expected to produce the same results as a query of a bulk phone-records database," attorneys for the senators wrote.

They also said the NSA has been unable to identify instances in which the government gained valuable information from phone records the companies themselves did not continue to possess.

The Smiths believe the records are best kept by private companies, and the federal government should have to request them as needed in the course of investigations of terrorism suspects.

"Despite years of receiving classified briefings and asking repeated questions of intelligence officials in both private and public settings, (the senators) have seen no evidence that bulk collection accomplishes anything that other, less intrusive surveillance authorities could not," they wrote. "Bulk collection is not only a significant threat to the constitutional liberties of Americans, but a needless one."