Injunction against NSA phone records program is vacated by DC Circuit
A federal appeals court on Friday vacated a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone metadata, while allowing the plaintiff to try to prove standing on remand.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in a suit by conservative legal activists Larry Klayman and Charles Strange. The case returns to U.S. District Judge Richard Leon of Washington, D.C., who ruled in 2013 that the NSA program is likely unconstitutional but stayed his injunction pending appeal. Among the publications with stories are the New York Times, the Washington Post, the National Law Journal (sub. req.) and the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.). How Appealing links to additional coverage and the decision (PDF).
The plaintiffs sued after Edward Snowden revealed information about the NSA program, which collects information about the length, time and phone numbers of calls made to or from the United States.
A new measure signed into law on June 2, the USA Freedom Act, changes the NSA program, but it doesn’t take effect for 180 days. At that time, the data will be held by phone companies. The government can conduct searches with an order by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The court found that the new law does not make the lawsuit moot because it doesn’t take effect for 180 days.
Klayman told the Wall Street Journal he has obtained recently disclosed government documents showing his phone carrier had participated in the NSA program. He said the decision is an “outrage.”
“An ill-informed first-year law student could have written this in one day,” Klayman said. He told the Washington Post that the delayed ruling by the D.C. Circuit allowed continued violations of Americans’ constitutional rights.
Another federal appeals court, based in New York, will hear arguments next week in a different challenge to the surveillance program.
