Reiterating his prior ruling which found the U.S. government’s surveillance of civilians’ telephone records to be unconstitutional—”Orwellian,” even—a federal judge on Monday ordered the National Security Agency to halt its bulk collection program.
“This court simply cannot, and will not, allow the government to trump the Constitution merely because it suits the exigencies of the moment,” Judge Richard Leon wrote in his 43-page decision in the case Klayman v. Obama.
Though the ruling comes just 20 days before the NSA program is set to expire under orders set forth in the USA Freedom Act, civil liberties advocates were quick to celebrate the decision as a victory that may potentially have broad implications for the U.S. government’s lesser-known surveillance operations.
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On Twitter, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who exposed the breadth of NSA spying, shared snippets of the ruling that he found particularly encouraging:
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