THE UNITED STATES Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled on Thursday that the bulk collection of phone metadata by the NSA was illegal under federal law.
Rather than address the constitutionality of the program, the court took a much simpler tack. The decision concludes that the practice is beyond the scope of what the US Congress had in mind when it passed section 215 of the Patriot Act after September 11, 2001.
The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and had been dismissed in 2013 by a lower court. Today's ruling vacates that decision, and could pave the way for a full legal challenge of NSA collection methods, which were first brought to light by Edward Snowden.
Also at: The Intercept, EFF, El Reg, BBC, NYT.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2015, @12:44AM
Are those your papers or are those my papers?
Are you a huge company that has so much information about so many people that if the government was able to get its hands on it, along with the information of others companies, it would enable mass surveillance? Having information about everyone is what enables mass surveillance.
Had the founders predicted mass surveillance on this scale, they very likely would have taken steps against it. I know they weren't fans of general warrants, for instance. Times have changed, and it is necessary to divulge quite a bit of information about yourself to companies. As such, we need to protect our 'papers', even if they are in the possession of companies, in order to protect the spirit of the fourth amendment. Judges who don't take this into account are ignorant and unprincipled.