Judges Skeptical NSA Spying Violates Privacy Rights

A federal appeals court appears largely unconvinced that the government's once-secret practice of collecting virtually all Americans' phone records violates the Constitution. A panel of three Republican-nominated judges on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals challenged arguments made by a conservative activist and civil-liberties groups that the National Security Agency's mass-surveillance program represents a breach of the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable searches.

Judge Stephen Williams indicated that violations to privacy were more likely to occur when intelligence officials actually analyze metadata, which he said was "two steps" removed from the collection stage. Larry Klayman, a conservative lawyer arguing on his own behalf, countered that "just collecting the data is enough to implicate the Fourth Amendment." Judge Williams pressed Klayman to articulate specifically how the mere collection of troves of unanalyzed data could violate an American's privacy. But Judge Williams remained unsatisfied with Klayman's response.