The Supreme Court offered no explanation Tuesday for refusing to hear an appeal regarding the Bush administration's covert domestic surveillance program.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed the appeal, saying they were targeted by government spying. Critics says the program violates Americans' rights to privacy.

"To us, it's very disappointing that the president's actions will go unremarked upon by the Supreme Court," said Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's lead counsel in the case. "It should not be up to the executive branch alone to determine what limits apply to its surveillance activities."

The program was created in secret -- without congressional or judicial approval -- by President Bush following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Dubbed the Terror Surveillance Program, it was designed to electronically monitor domestic terrorist activity. Watch Bush explain why the program makes the U.S. safer.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in July that a coalition of journalists, scholars, legal advocates and watchdog groups had no legal standing to pursue a claim because they could not prove they had been targeted by the National Security Agency program.

"They cannot establish they are 'aggrieved persons,' " wrote Judge Alice Batchelder for the Cincinnati, Ohio, court's 2-1 majority.

The ACLU said the ruling placed it in an untenable legal position. Jaffer said Tuesday the ruling created a Catch-22 by requiring that claimants prove they were targeted, but allowing the government to withhold information about the program.

The Justice Department has countered that the documents are constitutionally protected under the "state secrets privilege."

The July appeals ruling, said Jaffer, "entirely immunized from judicial review" decisions regarding the domestic surveillance program.

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