Federal Court Rules Against NSA Phone Records Program
The government's actions are "far beyond what Congress ever intended."
by Rod D. Martin
May 12, 2015
As every friend of the Constitution already knew, a federal appeals court has ruled that the NSA's bulk, warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens' phone records is illegal.
The sweeping decision from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday represents a major court victory for opponents of the NSA and comes just as Congress begins a fight over whether to renew the underlying law used to justify the program.
That program “exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized,” Judge Gerard Lynch wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel.
The Second Circuit is one of the three appeals courts hearing challenges to the NSA’s phone records program, which is likely to land at the U.S. Supreme Court.
With the blessing of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — the secretive federal court overseeing government intelligence operations — the government has interpreted that mandate to allow it to collect massive amounts of records containing “…