Federal appeals court rules NSA cell phone data collection illegal

This afternoon, a New York federal appeals court ruled that the NSA's warrantless collection of domestic phone data is illegal. This will come as welcome news to those of us who would rather not trade freedom for a false sense of security.

As the New York Times reports:

In a 97-page ruling, a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a provision of the Act permitting the Federal Bureau of Investigation to collect business records deemed relevant to a counterterrorism investigation cannot be legitimately interpreted to permit the systematic bulk collection of domestic calling records. The ruling was certain to increase the tension that has been building in Congress because the provision of the Patriot Act that has been cited to justify the bulk data collection program will expire in June unless lawmakers pass a bill to extend it. It is the first time a higher-level court in the regular judicial system has reviewed the program, which since 2006 has repeatedly been approved in secret by a national security court. This is the first of three such cases. Two other parallel hearings are still pending in other appeals courts.

---

The court, in a decision written by Judge Gerard E. Lynch, held that the Patriot Act provision, known as Section 215, “cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it, and that it does not authorize the telephone metadata program.” It should be noted that this has no bearing on the NSA's other nasty habit - the bulk collection of global internet data authorized under section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. While programs like PRISM were supposed to focus solely on the internet activity of people outside of the United States, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper eventually admitted that it had, in fact, been used domestically. No one is entirely sure how often this happens, largely because no one can trust James Clapper anymore. Frankly, in the face of federal intrusion into data networks, cell phone metadata seems like small potatoes. We're sure a whole swath of government agencies would be more than happy to sacrifice the cell phone program if it meant distracting the masses from ongoing internet data collection. While the verdict above is a nice first step for privacy rights advocates, its eventual fate will probably be decided in one of two ways. Either Congress will de-authorize the program (something Mitch McConnell is fighting tooth and nail against) or it will head to the Supreme Court. Even if it's struck down, it feels like a very small battle in a much larger 4th Amendment war.