A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that the National Security Agency's warrantless collection of millions of Americans' phone records is not authorized under the Patriot Act and is therefore illegal.
The program "exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized," the Second Circuit Court of Appeals wrote. The White House and defenders of the controversial program claimed Section 215 of the Patriot Act allowed for warrantless phone monitoring. But the court determined the section "cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it, and that it does not authorize the telephone metadata program."
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