On Dec. 16, Judge Richard Leon of the US District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that the NSA's vast program to collect Americans' phone records was possibly unconstitutional and, at a minimum, "almost-Orwellian." In his 68-page ruling, the judge also noted that he was unaware of any instance in which the collected phone records had been in useful in undercutting an attack. Then, on Dec.18, a presidential panel encouraged President Obama to massively curtail the activities of the NSA, including making major revisions to how the agency handles US phone data. The recommendations for overhauling the phone program included putting the collected data in the hands of private telecommunications companies and making it necessary for the government to procure a court order to access an individual's information. As it is now, the collected data, called metadata, are available to a group of agency officials who can also authorize access for other parties.
Why is this important? The court's ruling and the presidential panel's recommendations were both high-level blows to the US government's staunch commitment to maintaining the NSA's phone-data collection activities, even as public anger mounted as the extent of the surveillance became more apparent. Both events also came as similar cases against the NSA's program, including one by the American Civil Liberties Union, were wending their way through the courts.
