NSA - End of Bulk Data Collection? Not Yet

"The end of NSA’s bulk data collection?" PBS NewsHour 5/7/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The government program that collects the phone data of millions of Americans is illegal and not sanctioned by the Patriot Act, according to a ruling by a U.S. appeals court.  Gwen Ifill discusses the case with former Homeland Security Department official Stewart Baker and Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The debate between privacy and security returned to center stage today, after a federal appeals court ruled a National Security Agency program that allowed bulk collection of millions of U.S. phone records went too far.  But where is the line?

And, as a deadline approaches for renewing the underlying Patriot Act, what happens now?

Joining me to discuss the value of such government surveillance are Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties advocacy group, and Stewart Baker, a former general counsel at the National Security Agency and former assistant secretary of homeland security.

Welcome to you both.

Kate Martin, was this the dropped shoe that privacy advocates were waiting on?

KATE MARTIN, Center for National Security Studies:  Yes.  This is the first time that a federal appeals court has looked at what was a secret interpretation by the government that allowed it to collect massive amounts of records on Americans under a secret interpretation of the law.

And the court said that secret interpretation of the law wasn’t, in fact, authorized by the Congress and so held the program to be a violation of the law.

GWEN IFILL:  So what does this do?  Does this stop the program in its tracks, Stewart Baker?

STEWART BAKER, Former Homeland Security Department official:  No, actually.  It’s remarkably without consequence.

It, at the end of the day, says Congress, in the view of this court, didn’t authorize exactly what the program is, and unless Congress says that it’s authorized, it’s not going to continue.  And then they send it back to the judge, letting the judge in the district court determine whether to enjoin it.

But really that just underlines what we already knew, which is that Congress has to act in the next three weeks, because, if it doesn’t, the program goes away automatically.  If it does, it’s going to have to say, yes, we’re approving this program.