A Federal judge has ruled that National Security Agency's (NSA) bulk collection and surveillance of phone records was "indiscriminate" and "arbitrary invasion" of privacy.
The NSA has been surrounded by controversies after Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, leaked classified documents revealing the agency's data collection process. On a daily basis, NSA collects records of almost every phone call made in the U.S. and collects them in a database to search for possible terrorism suspects.
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, who was appointed directly by former President George W. Bush, ruled in favor of Larry Klayman, a conservative activist and lawyer. Klayman had filed a lawsuit claiming that NSA's data collection program violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search.
Judge Leon granted a preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiff; however, he also stayed his decision "pending appeal," which gives the U.S. government time to fight the decision. The ruling is the first major legal defeat for the NSA after Snowden revealed the agency's secretive operations.
"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 and analyzing it without prior judicial approval. Surely such a program infringes on 'that degree of privacy' that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. Indeed I have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison, who cautioned us to beware 'the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power,' would be aghast," noted judge Leon.
The Obama administration has defended the data collection program by NSA saying that the program has assisted the government to avert many terrorism threats on the country. However, Leon noted that the U.S. Government did not cite even a single instance in which the program stopped a forthcoming terrorist attack.
Judge Leon has also entered an order to bar NSA from collecting any "telephony metadata associated with their personal Verizon accounts" and asked the agency to destroy any such metadata, which it has on records collected via the program.
Keith Alexander, NSA's director, recently told a Senate committee that there is no better way to defend the U.S. from potential terrorist threats than the ongoing record collection of telephone records. He also added that if the program is scrapped, then the country will go into the pre-9/11 era.
Alexander also noted that national security threat has been rising in the recent months and taking the program off will not be appropriate for the country's security.
