District Court Decision Casts Doubt On Legality of NSA Phone Surveillance

A decision handed down Dec. 16 by a district court judge casts doubt on the legality of controversial telephone surveillance activities implemented by the National Security Agency.

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Richard Leon issued a preliminary injunction barring the government from collecting—as part of a broader surveillance program—any “metadata” associated with the Verizon phone calls of plaintiffs Larry Klayman and Charles Strange (Klayman v. Obama, D.D.C, No. 13-0851, Dec. 16, 2013).

In addition, the government was ordered to destroy all such data already gathered.

The order was stayed pending appeal.

Leon ruled that ...