DC Circuit Court Rules in Favor of NSA, Reverses District Court Decision
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday reversed on a 2-1 vote a U.S. District Court in Washington ruling that said NSA bulk collection of phone call data was unconstitutional. The ruling, issued by Judges Janice…
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Brown, David Sentelle and Stephen Williams, remanded the case to the lower court on the grounds the plaintiffs didn't prove their individual phone records were collected. Larry Klayman, who sued the federal government over NSA collection of bulk phone data, was joined by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for National Security Studies (CNSS), which filed as amici curiae. In her opinion, Brown said the plaintiffs' argument "leaves some doubt about whether plaintiffs' own metadata was ever collected," which goes against the central allegation that their rights were violated. Williams agreed with Brown, and said the plaintiffs claim to suffer injury from phone records collection but they can't prove their Verizon Wireless phone call records were collected by the NSA, since the only provider the government has acknowledged collecting records from is Verizon Business Network Services. In his dissenting opinion, Sentelle said he agreed the injunction against the government should be overturned, but argued the case should be dismissed, not remanded to the District Court. EFF and CNSS didn't comment.