U. S. court says feds can’t collect all phone records
NEW YORK — The unprecedented and unwarranted bulk collection of Americans’ phone records by the government is illegal because it wasn’t authorized by Congress, a federal appeals court said Thursday as it asked legislators to decide how to balance national security and privacy interests.
A three- judge panel of the Second U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan permitted the National Security Agency program to continue temporarily as it exists, but all but pleaded for Congress to better define where boundaries exist.
“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,” said the opinion written by Circuit Judge Gerald Lynch.
“The statutes to which the government points have never been interpreted to authorize anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here,” the court said. “The sheer volume of information sought is staggering.”
A lower court judge in December had rejected an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, saying the program was a necessary extension to security measures taken after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
The NSA’s collection and storage of U. S. landline calling records — times, dates and numbers but not content of the calls — was the most controversial program among many disclosed in 2013 by former NSA systems administrator Edward Snowden. Some NSA officials opposed the program, and independent evaluations have found it of limited value as a counterterrorism tool. Snowden remains exiled in Russia.
U. S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the government is reviewing the court’s decision. She added that the June 1 expiration of the Patriot Act provisions provides opportunities to reauthorize the program “in a way that does preserve its efficacy and protect privacy.”
The court’s ruling sharpens the focus on the ongoing congressional debate surrounding the program.
Republicans and Democrats in the House have agreed on a bill to end the government’s bulk collection of the records, but Senate leaders are backing a competing measure that would maintain the status quo. One sponsor, intelligence committee Chairman Richard Burr, RN. C., has said he is open to a compromise.
The divisions on the issue don’t run neatly along partisan lines. Libertarian- leaning Republicans have joined many Democrats in arguing that a secret intelligence agency should not be storing the records of every American phone call, even if the data are only examined under limited circumstances. Some Democrats and Republicans assert that the program is needed now more than ever, given the efforts by the Islamic State group to inspire extremists to attack inside the U. S.
U. S. Rep. Adam Schiff, DBurbank, a ranking member of the intelligence committee, said he hopes the ruling serves as a “catalyst for an end to bulk collection and the beginning of serious reform.”