Lyle Denniston on Second Circuit telephone metadata ruling
on May 7, 2015 at 6:45 pm
Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit struck down the National Security Agency’s sweeping telephone “metadata” collection program on the ground that it was not authorized by the USA Patriot Act. As Lyle Denniston reports in more detail at his eponymous blog, the ruling “may be mostly symbolic,” because the law is about to expire. As a result, U.S. Supreme Court review is unlikely. However, Congress is now considering a new bill that would authorize the program with some additional limits, and moreover today’s ruling “cleared away obstacles that have blocked other court challenges to the program.”
