NSA Bulk Data Collection On Trial This Week

A panel of federal judges this week will be the first to hear a trial on the legality of the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of phone records. The lawsuit, originally filed by the ACLU in June 2013, argues that collecting phone metadata violates privacy rights and federal law. The bulk of the documents ACLU presented as evidence were leaked by former NSA intelligence officer Edward Snowden. Though bills have been proposed in Congress to end the bulk collection program or otherwise restrict NSA’s access to data, any movement on those is unlikely this year.