He's suing Britain's Mirror Group Newspapers for damages, claiming its journalists were involved in unlawfully gathering information about him by phone hacking and using private investigators.
Under Kennedy, the telephones of presidential critics were tapped and their tax returns, including those of Richard Nixon and his mother, were audited.
This is hacking on an industrial scale, as was acknowledged by Glenn Mulcaire, the man hired by the News of the World in 2001 to be the point person for phone hacking.
This same absence of moral purpose was wounding companies such as News International, she thought, making it more likely that it would lose its way as it had with widespread illegal telephone hacking.
And that's what these celebrities are accusing publications from Associated Newspapers of doing - getting private information about them in a dishonest way, such as listening to private phone calls.
Nowadays, there are laws saying that you – the government cannot tap your phone, cannot use wiretapping unless the use is approved, typically by a judge, a member of the court system.