US court overturns NSA bulk collection of phone records

A federal appeals court in New York ruled that the National Security Agency's programme collecting Americans’ phone records in bulk is illegal. 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 U.S.A. Patriot Act, known as Section 215, cannot be legitimately interpreted to allow the bulk collection of domestic calling records, the New York Times reports. 

The provision of the act used to justify the bulk data programme is to expire 01 June, and Congress is considering whether to extend or amend the programme. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, has pressed to maintain the N.S.A.’s existing programme against bipartisan efforts to scale it back, and has proposed simply extending the statute. 

The federal court ruling did not come with any injunction ordering the programme to cease, and it is not clear that anything else will happen in the judicial system before Congress has to make a decision about the expiring law. The House appears ready to pass a bill next week that would end the government’s bulk collection of phone records. That bill, known as the U.S.A. Freedom Act, would replace it with a new programme that would preserve the N.S.A.’s ability to analyze links between callers to hunt for terrorists, but keep the bulk records in the hands of phone companies, which would be free to dispose of them after 18 months. The N.S.A. keeps them for five years.