Remember, Folks, this all began under a "Republican" president, and has now been declared illegal. A bit late, if you ask me. Full text at link;
WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court declared on Thursday that a National Security Agency program that sweeps up logs of Americans' phone calls is illegal, representing the most significant legal setback yet for the long-running surveillance operation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York said the program "exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized" under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the USA Patriot Act, which the government had long maintained permitted that massive data collection.
"The statutes to which the government points have never been interpreted to authorize anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here," Judge Gerard Lynch wrote for the three-judge panel.
The 96-page opinion sidestepped the broader question of whether the NSA program is unconstitutional. Another case raising those issues is pending before a federal appeals court in Washington.
The court said that it would not order an immediate halt to the data collection, because the Patriot Act provision the government claimed authorized it is set to expire at the beginning of June.
"In light of the asserted national security interests at stake, we deem it prudent to pause to allow an opportunity for debate in Congress that may (or may not) profoundly alter the legal landscape," the court wrote.
The controversial program, which gathers information about phone calls made and received but does not eavesdrop on their content, has been the subject of several court challenges. A federal judge in Washington originally declared it unconstitutional; another judge in New York upheld it.
The 2nd Circuit appeals court panel that heard oral argument in September expressed skepticism about the reach of the program, which is intended to guard against terrorism.
The case ultimately could be headed to the Supreme Court, particularly if the appeals court for the District of Columbia Circuit reaches the opposite conclusion.
The phone surveillance program, which was among those disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year, already is on life support. President Obama has asked Congress for changes that would leave the data in the hands of private phone companies, not the government.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon granted a preliminary injunction against the program in December, ruling that it may be unconstitutional. But less than two weeks later, District Judge William Pauley ruled that the program was legal.
During September's hearing, the appeals court judges expressed dismay at the extent of the government's surveillance, which they said could be extended to other private data such as bank records. "You can collect everything there is to know about everybody," Lynch said, "and have it all in one big government cloud."
Assistant Attorney General Stuart Delery, representing the government, warned that the call data collected is a useful tool in the fight against terrorism. "The purpose of this work is to detect and disrupt future plots," he said.
