In an order issued Friday, a federal judge in San Francisco has allowed a case challenging the National Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative (NSI) to move forward by denying the government's motion to dismiss.

Since 2007 as part of the NSI, federal authorities encourage state and local law enforcement to gather information on potential terrorism suspects through “Suspicious Activity Reports,” (SAR) which can stay in federal databases for 30 years.

The current case, known as Gill et al. v. Department of Justice et al (Gill v. DOJ), seeks to halt the standards that define the entire NSI program. If Gill was successful, it could effectively stop it.

The case involves five Americans—“two photographers, one white man who is a devout Muslim, and two men of Middle Eastern and South Asian descent”—according to the original July 2014 complaint. Among others, lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union brought the case.

Lead plaintiff Wiley Gill is a white man who converted to Islam as a student at California State University, Chico, and he drew the attention of the Chico Police Department in May 2012. (Chico is about 180 miles due north of San Francisco.) According to the SAR about Gill, the officer entered Gill’s residence in response to an apparent domestic violence incident (Gill was home alone). The officer then saw on a webpage “titled something similar to ‘Games that fly under the radar’" on Gill’s computer.

"Coupled with the fact he is unemployed, appears to shun law enforcement contact, has potential access to flight simulators via the Internet which he tried to minimize is worthy of note," the SAR, entitled "Suspicious Male Subject in Possession of Flight Simulator Game," concludes.

In October 2014, the government responded to the suit with a motion to dismiss, arguing among other things that the plaintiffs lacked standing. The feds believed that none of the plaintiffs can prove a “legally cognizable injury.”

However, US District Judge Richard Seeborg did not buy the government’s argument: