NSA Phone Surveillance Is Legal And Vital?

The American Civil Liberties Union has had their case against the NSA dismissed, with a US district Judge ruling that collection of data from phones is lawful. For those that don’t know in June the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit to challenge the NSA’s collection of phone records and data, stating that it violates the American’s First and Fourth Amendment rights. These being the right to free speech (First Amendment), as well as the right which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures (Fourth Amendment).  The American Civil Liberties Union was pushing for an injunction to stop the NSA’s phone surveillance and have all saved data deleted.

Fridays ruling by US District Judge William Pauley stated the United States of America and it’s government still had a need for the surveillance program run by the NSA, claiming that the surveillance program is used to detect and prevent terrorist activities. Judge Pauley also went onto to state that NSA did not go to unreasonable lengths in the pursuit of stopping and preventing terrorist activities. The US District Judge also went on to state that due to the NSA’s inability to “connect the telephone dots” ahead of the 9/11 attacks, the Al-Qaeda succeeded, because conventional intelligence gathering techniques could not diffuse filaments connecting Al-Qaeda.

In his closing statement US District Judge William Pauley stated;

“No doubt, the bulk telephony metadata collection program vacuums up information about virtually every telephone call to, form or within the United States. That is by design, as it allows the NSA to detect relationships so attenuated and ephemeral they would otherwise escape notice. As the September 11th attacks demonstrate, the cost of missing such a thread can be horrific”.

Despite the ruling made the American Civil Liberties Union has not given up on its fight to get an injunction on the NSA’s phone surveillance program. With the Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union releasing this statement;

“We are extremely disappointed with this decision, which misinterprets the relevant statues, understates the privacy implications of the government’s surveillance and misapplied a narrow and outdated precedent to read away core constitutional protections. As another federal judge and the president’s own review group concluded last week, the NSA’s bulk collection of telephony data constitutes a serious invasion of American’s privacy. We intend to appeal and look forward to making our case in the Second Circuit.”

The NSA’s collection of phone data has been a huge topic this year since Edward Snowden starting leaking classified documents and brought this all to light. It was easily been one of the biggest stories of this year and looks set to carry on into 2014. We will bring you more information as it becomes available.

Thank you CNET for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of Fast Company.