Patriot Act author says NSA’s bulk data collection is “unbounded in its scope”

In one of the most prominent legal challenges to government intelligence gathering since the Edward Snowden disclosures, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit against four top Obama Administration officials.

The case, known as ACLU v. Clapper, asks a federal judge to declare the entire metadata sharing program unlawful, halt it, and purge all related records. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), with representation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), filed an amicus brief with the court. He noted that the vast data handover is not at all what Congress intended to happen. And Rep Sensenbrenner should know, too, because he authored the Patriot Act in October 2001 and supported its subsequent reauthorizations. In particular, Section 215 of that law, which expanded government surveillance power of business records, is what the government argues gives it the authority to collect metadata in bulk.