The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said in a 97-page opinion that the laws used as a basis for the bulk data collection "have never been interpreted to authorize anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here."
The court said the government went far beyond what Congress intended in Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which was designed to counter terrorism.
However, the court permitted the National Security Agency program to continue temporarily as it exists, and all but pleaded for Congress to better define where the boundaries exist.
"There is no evidence that Congress intended for those statutes to authorize the bulk collection of every American's toll billing or educational records and to aggregate them into a database," the court's panel said in the opinion.
"If Congress decides to authorize the collection of the data desired by the government under conditions identical to those now in place, the program will continue in the future under that authorization," it said.
"If Congress decides to institute a substantially modified program, the constitutional issues will certainly differ considerably from those currently raised," it added.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against the NSA and FBI, following disclosures about the vast surveillance programs in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who remains exiled in Russia.
The metadata collected from millions of phone calls includes the numbers called, times and other information but not the content of conversations. Still, civil liberties advocates argue the program is a massive intrusion on privacy.
china.org.cn - Xinhua
8/5/15
--
-
Related:
GR
FR
DE
ES
IT
RU
EU
Un tribunal d'appel de New York a jugé illégale la collecte massive de données téléphoniques menée par l'agence de renseignement NSA...
ReplyDeleteLe tribunal a trouvé que les lois évoquées par la NSA pour justifier la mise en place de ce programme de surveillance "n'avaient jamais été interprétées pour autoriser quelque chose qui s'approche de l'ampleur de la surveillance en question".
Selon le tribunal, le programme outrepasse le cadre fixé dans la loi Patriot Act, adoptée par le Congrès US suite aux attentats du 11 septembre en vue de faciliter la surveillance des personnes soupçonnées d'être impliquées dans les activités terroristes.
La plainte avait été déposée par l'association American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) contre la National Security Agency (NSA) et le FBI suite aux révélations faites par Edward Snowden, ex-conseiller de la CIA, qui a obtenu l'asile temporaire en Russie en 2013. Selon l'ACLU, le programme en question constitue une violation de la vie privée sans cependant aider à contrer le terrorisme.....http://sptnkne.ws/jsV
8/5/15