The government gets a victory in a case brought by the ACLU, which
charged that the spy agency was violating Americans' First and Fourth
Amendment rights.
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET)
A US district judge on Friday dismissed the American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit against the government's top spy agency, ruling that bulk collection of telephony metadata by the NSA is lawful.
In June, the ACLU filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's mass collection of phone records, arguing that the practice violates Americans' First and Fourth Amendment rights.
The ACLU sought a preliminary injunction to stop the government's phone-surveillance program and to have all of the collected data deleted.
In his ruling Friday in ACLU vs. James R. Clapper, US District Judge William Pauley said that the US government had a pressing need for the surveillance program as a method for detecting and preventing terrorist attacks and that it did not go to unreasonable lengths in that pursuit.
"No doubt, the bulk telephony metadata collection program vacuums
up information about virtually every telephone call to, from, or within
the United States," Pauley said in his conclusion. "That is by design,
as it allows the NSA to detect relationships so attenuated and ephemeral
they would otherwise escape notice. As the September 11th attacks
demonstrate, the cost of missing such a thread can be horrific."
Pauley's ruling also drew a comparison between the NSA's surveillance efforts and US citizens' routine sharing of personal data. "Every day, people voluntarily surrender personal and seemingly-private information to transnational corporations, which exploit that data for profit. Few think twice about it, even though it is far more intrusive than bulk telephony metadata collection."
The ACLU vowed to press on with the case.
"We are extremely disappointed with this decision, which misinterprets the relevant statutes, understates the privacy implications of the government's surveillance and misapplies a narrow and outdated precedent to read away core constitutional protections," said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director, in a statement.
"As another federal judge and the president's own review group concluded last week, the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephony data constitutes a serious invasion of Americans' privacy. We intend to appeal and look forward to making our case in the Second Circuit."
Read the rest of this post --->
(Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET)
A US district judge on Friday dismissed the American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit against the government's top spy agency, ruling that bulk collection of telephony metadata by the NSA is lawful.
In June, the ACLU filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's mass collection of phone records, arguing that the practice violates Americans' First and Fourth Amendment rights.
The ACLU sought a preliminary injunction to stop the government's phone-surveillance program and to have all of the collected data deleted.
In his ruling Friday in ACLU vs. James R. Clapper, US District Judge William Pauley said that the US government had a pressing need for the surveillance program as a method for detecting and preventing terrorist attacks and that it did not go to unreasonable lengths in that pursuit.
There is no evidence that the Government has used any of the bulk telephony metadata it collected for any purpose other than investigating and disrupting terrorist attacks. While there have been unintentional violation of guidelines, those appear to stem from human error and the incredibly complex computer programs that support this vital tool. And once detected, those violations were self-reported and stopped. The bulk telephony metadata collection program is subject to executive and congressional oversight, as well as continual monitoring by a dedicated group of judges who sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.Pauley cited the NSA's inability to connect the telephone dots ahead of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. "[Al-Qaeda's plot] succeeded because conventional intelligence gathering could not detect diffuse filaments connecting al-Qaeda," he wrote.
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Pauley's ruling also drew a comparison between the NSA's surveillance efforts and US citizens' routine sharing of personal data. "Every day, people voluntarily surrender personal and seemingly-private information to transnational corporations, which exploit that data for profit. Few think twice about it, even though it is far more intrusive than bulk telephony metadata collection."
The ACLU vowed to press on with the case.
"We are extremely disappointed with this decision, which misinterprets the relevant statutes, understates the privacy implications of the government's surveillance and misapplies a narrow and outdated precedent to read away core constitutional protections," said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director, in a statement.
"As another federal judge and the president's own review group concluded last week, the National Security Agency's bulk collection of telephony data constitutes a serious invasion of Americans' privacy. We intend to appeal and look forward to making our case in the Second Circuit."
Read the rest of this post --->
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