A federal district court judge in New York dismissed a lawsuit brought by the ACLU today, and declared that NSA phone surveillance is legal.

U.S. District Judge William Pauley said in a written opinion that the program “represents the government’s counter-punch” to eliminate al-Qaida’s terror network by connecting fragmented and fleeting communications.

In ruling, the judge noted the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and how the phone data-collection system could have helped investigators connect the dots before the attacks occurred.

“The government learned from its mistake and adapted to confront a new enemy: a terror network capable of orchestrating attacks across the world. It launched a number of counter-measures, including a bulk telephony metadata collection program — a wide net that could find and isolate gossamer contacts among suspected terrorists in an ocean of seemingly disconnected data,” he said.

Since Judge Pauley referenced terrorism in his decision, the Greenwaldians will now predictably attack him as a shill for the government — because in the strange world of the Greenwald cult, there’s no such thing as terrorism except when they’re accusing the US of it.

On news of this decision, fans of Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald sprang into action and began vandalizing Judge Pauley’s Wikipedia page.

William H. Pauley III”’ (born 1952) is a [[United States federal judge]], Terrorist, Enemy of The People, and The Constitution of the United States.

Here’s the full ruling:

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