I think the issue deserves it’s time in court, the highest court of the land. Saying this policy cannot be challenged in court flies in the face of the spirit and intent of our civil protections.

aclu.org

Now we must depend on a legislative relief. I like the Sensenbrenner / Leahy bill.

In its briefs, EPIC claimed that all calling records cannot be relevant to an investigation.

“The ongoing collection of the domestic telephone records of millions of Americans by the NSA, untethered to any particular investigation, is beyond the authority granted by Congress to the FISC …” according to EPIC’s petition.

The government has said that the spying program has been ongoing since at least 2006, and has repeatedly been authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. “As of October 1, 2013, fourteen different judges of the FISC, on thirty-four separate occasions, have approved Section 1861 orders directing telecommunications service providers to produce records in connection with the Telephony Records Program,” the government told the justices in its filing while urging the court to reject the case.

The government told a New York federal judge presiding over a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that the wholesale vacuuming up of all phone-call metadata in the United States is in the “public interest,” does not breach the constitutional rights of Americans and cannot be challenged in a court of law.

More: Supreme Court Rejects Case Challenging NSA Phone Spying