NSA bulk collection of phone data ruled illegal by US court
But judges have not halted the programme instead urging US Congress to take action
A US federal appeals court has found that the bulk collection of phone data by the US National Security Agency (NSA) is illegal.
The NSA's actions were leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, but in 2013 a ruling was made that the surveillance could not be subject to judicial review.
However, the 2nd US Court of Appeals in New York has overturned that decision, leaving the NSA open to further legal challenges.
The court found that the metadata collected had surpassed the provisions in the Patriot Act that enable the NSA to collect information. The Patriot Act, launched after the September 11 attacks on the US, is the subject of a battle in Washington on whether it should be retained or replaced with legislation that aims to better protect civil liberties. Section 215 of the Act gives authority to the NSA to vacuum up call data records on behalf of the US government.
But despite the "illegal" verdict by the US appeals court, the judges did not call a halt to the programme, instead urging Congress to take action.
"We hold that the text of Section 215 cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it, and that it does not authorise the telephone metadata programme," the judges said.
They added that such a "monumental shift" in its approach to combating terrorism required a clearer signal from Congress rather than a "recycling of oft-used language long held in similar contexts to mean something far narrower".
"We conclude that to allow the government to collect phone records only because they may become relevant to a possible authorised investigation in the future fails even the permissive ‘relevance' test," the judges said.
"We agree with appellants that the government's argument is ‘irreconcilable with the statute's plain text'," they stated.