Now, a federal judge has recognized the constitutional concerns.
"I cannot imagine a more 'indiscriminate' and 'arbitrary invasion' than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval," wrote US District Judge Richard Leon.
Judge Leon's decision, which will surely be appealed, focuses attention on legal challenges to the spying program. But it also serves as a reminder that Congress can and should act to defend privacy rights.
"The ruling underscores what I have argued for years: The bulk collection of Americans' phone records conflicts with Americans' privacy rights under the U.S. Constitution and has failed to make us safer," says Senator Mark Udall, D-Colorado, a supporter of legislation to end the bulk collection program. "We can protect our national security without trampling our constitutional liberties."
"Judge Leon's ruling hits the nail on the head. It makes clear that bulk phone records collection is intrusive digital surveillance and not simply inoffensive data collection as some have said. The court noted that this metadata can be used for 'repetitive, surreptitious surveillance of a citizen's private goings on,' that creates a mosaic of personal information and is likely unconstitutional. This ruling dismisses the use of an outdated Supreme Court decision affecting rotary phones as a defense for the technologically advanced collection of millions of Americans' records. It clearly underscores the need to adopt meaningful surveillance reforms that prohibit the bulk collection of Americans' records."
The senators had reason to be enthusiastic about Judge Leon's determination that legal challenges to the massive surveillance program are valid. So valid, in fact, that he issued a preliminary injunction against the program. The judge suspended the order, however, in order to allow a Justice Department appeal.
But Judge Leon was blunt regarding the strength of the challenge that was brought after Snowden revealed details of the agency's spying in The Guardian.
"I have little doubt that the author of our Constitution, James Madison... would be aghast," the judge wrote with regard to the NSA program for surveillance of cell phone records,
"The court concludes that plaintiffs have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the government's bulk collection and querying of phone record metadata, that they have demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their Fourth Amendment claim and that they will suffer irreparable harm absent...relief," Judge Leon wrote in response to a lawsuit brought by Larry Klayman, a former Reagan administration lawyer who now leads the conservative Freedom Watch group.
The case is one of several that have been working their way through the federal courts since Snowden disclosed details of the NSA program.
Legal challenges to NSA spying are not new, and they have failed in the past.
Challenging the FISA Amendments Act (FAA) -- the law that permits the government to wiretap US citizens communicating with people overseas -- Amnesty International and other human rights advocates, lawyers and journalists fought a case all the way to the US Supreme Court in 2012. In February 2013, however, the Justices ruled 5-4 that the challengers lacked standing because they could not prove they had been the victims of wiretapping and other privacy violations.
The Justice Department has continued to argue that plaintiffs in lawsuits against the spying program lack standing because they cannot prove their records were examined. But Judge Leon suggested that the old calculus that afforded police agencies great leeway when it came to monitoring communications has clearly changed.
Suggesting that the NSA has relied on "almost-Orwellian technology," wrote Judge Leon, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia bench. "The relationship between the police and the phone company (as imagined by the courts decades ago)...is nothing compared to the relationship that has apparently evolved over the last seven years between the government and telecom companies."
The judge concluded, "It's one thing to say that people expect phone companies to occasionally provide information to law enforcement; it is quite another to suggest that our citizens expect all phone companies to operate what is effectively a joint intelligence-gathering operation with the government."
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