WASHINGTON—Monday's district-court decision challenging federal surveillance powers could set up an early test for the revamped U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where a bench newly stocked with Obama appointees will hear any appeals.

During the George W. Bush administration, the D.C. Circuit repeatedly approved national-security measures that sometimes were questioned by other courts, legal scholars and bar organizations

D.C. Circuit judges, for example, ruled that Guantanamo Bay detainees had no right to challenge their imprisonment, and that the government could disregard the Geneva Conventions when prosecuting prisoners it designated as unlawful enemy combatants before military commissions.

The Supreme Court reversed those rulings in a string of landmark opinions delivered between 2004 and 2008, rejecting the expansive view of executive power the D.C. Circuit had embraced.

Even so, advocates of a strong executive continued to vest their hopes in the D.C. Circuit. In 2006 legislation creating a modified form of military commissions intended to comply with Supreme Court requirements, the Bush administration made sure to funnel appeals through the D.C. Circuit instead of the court that hears other appeals from military courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. Some officials considered that court too willing to overturn convictions.