Small win for NSA program

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency can continue to collect the phone records of millions of Americans, but only for three more months, under a ruling Friday by the U.S. appeals court.

The ruling is a symbolic win for the Obama administration and its national security team, but it’s largely moot, since Congress voted this summer to phase out the controversial surveillance program.

Two years ago, a federal judge declared the once-secret program unconstitutional and issued an injunction against it, but stayed his injunction pending appeal.

In Friday’s 3-0 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington set aside the district judge’s early ruling and said the NSA could continue to collect the data.

But that controversial policy will end in late November, thanks to a bipartisan compromise written into law in June. Libertarian Republicans and liberal Democrats agreed that the government did not need to collect and store the phone records to thwart terrorists.

Lawmakers, including key Republicans, said they had never intended to authorize such mass data collection when they adopted the USA Patriot Act in 2001.

Under the new law, NSA agents tracking terrorism suspects may seek dialing records held by a phone company, but they will need approval of a special court.

The new USA Freedom Act says the agency does not have the authority to make phone companies turn over all of their records to be held by the government.

The NSA was given 180 days in all to adapt to the new restrictions. The shift cut off a series of lawsuits that had challenged the mass collection of phone records as unconstitutional.