A case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against the National Security Agency was dismissed Friday when a U.S. judge ruled that the spy agency’s dragnet collection of telephone data is constitutional.A National Security Agency (NSA) data gathering facility is seen in Bluffdale, about 25 miles (40 kms) south of Salt Lake City, Utah, December 17, 2013. Credit: Reuters/Jim Urquhart
While the agency “vacuums up information about virtually every telephone call to, from, or within the United States,” said U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan on Friday, it still remains within the framework of the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and is rather “ultimately a question of reasonableness.”
The judge went on to justify the surveillance, saying that the NSA has necessarily “adapted to confront a new enemy: a terror network capable of orchestrating attacks across the world.”
The ruling conflicts with lower court rulings and increases the chances of the issue going to the Supreme court, The New York Times reports.
Friday’s ruling conflicts with a decision in a separate lawsuit earlier this month by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, who said the U.S. government “almost certainly” violated the constitution with the phone surveillance program and granted a preliminary injunction against the collecting of phone records.
“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval,” Leon had stated.
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Source: Common Dreams