News / Human Rights

Appeals court rules NSA bulk data collection illegal

Thursday, 07 May 2015 2:00 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 07 May 2015 2:04 PM ]

National Security Agency Director and US Cyber command Commander Admiral Michael Rogers takes questions during his keynote address to the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association on April 2. (AFP photo)

A federal appeals court ruled the National Security Agency’s controversial mass collection of Americans’ phone records is illegal.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 97-page opinion Thursday that the laws used to justify the bulk data collection program “have never been interpreted to authorize anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here.”

The ruling by the three-judge panel in New York comes as Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which has been used as a basis for the NSA’s data collection, is due to expire next month and members of Congress are debating whether to renew the law, modify it, or let it die.

The court’s decision was in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) arguing the data collection program violates privacy rights of Americans.

A lower court judge had ruled the program was constitutional and the ACLU appealed that ruling.

The appeals court, however, did not say whether the NSA’s program violates the privacy rights of Americans because it was never properly authorized by existing law.

The judges also did not order the bulk data collection to stop.

In June 2013, Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, began leaking classified intelligence documents showing the extent of the NSA’s spying activities.

According to the documents, the agency has been collecting phone records of millions of Americans as well as foreign nationals and political leaders around the world.

US civil liberties advocates argue that the collected phone records could give intelligence agencies a road map to Americans' private activities.

HRJ/HRJ

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