We begin today's roundup with
Senator Bernie Sanders and his piece in TIME on a federal appeals court ruling striking down the NSA's domestic surveillance program:
I voted against the Patriot Act every time, and it still needs major reform.
I welcome a federal appeals court ruling that the National Security Agency does not have the legal authority to collect and store data on all U.S. telephone calls. Now Congress should rewrite the expiring eavesdropping provision in the so-called USA Patriot Act and include strong new limits to protect the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.
Let me be clear: We must do everything we can to protect our country from the serious potential of another terrorist attack. We can and must do so, however, in a way that also protects the constitutional rights of the American people and maintains our free society.
The New York Times editors add their take:
There is a lot to praise in the powerful ruling issued by a three-judge federal appeals panel in New York on Thursday, which held that the government’s vast, continuing and, until recently, secret sweep of Americans’ phone records is illegal.
But perhaps the most important message the unanimous decision sends is a simple one: Congress could not have intended to approve a program whose true scope almost no one outside the National Security Agency fully comprehended — that is, until Edward Snowden leaked its details to the world. [...]
Unfortunately, even modest reforms face resistance from top Republicans, including the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who on Thursday called for the law to be renewed without change. In doing so, they ignored a ruling that is the most important rebuke yet of the government’s abuses under that law.
Zoë Carpenter at The Nation explains how librarians "are on the front lines against government surveillance":
Librarians have frequently been involved in the fight against government surveillance. The first librarian to be locked up for defending privacy and intellectual freedom was Zoia Horn, who spent three week in jail in 1972 for refusing to testify against anti–Vietnam War activists. During the Cold War, librarians exposed the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s attempts to recruit library staffers to spy on foreigners, particularly Soviets, through a national effort called the Library Awareness Program.
The post-Snowden Internet age is no different. In January, the District of Columbia Public Library presented a 10-day series called “Orwellian America,” which included an all-day reading of 1984, a cyber-security workshop, and a panel discussion during which NSA whistleblower Kirk Wiebe informed the audience that “There’s an assault on the United States Constitution, and it’s real.” The Brooklyn Public Library has hosted several “cryptoparties” to teach people how to use privacy software. The San Jose Public Library is launching a pilot program to teach privacy literacy to patrons of all ages. “There’s a budding movement of librarians as privacy warriors,” Macrina said. “We’re seeing each other pick this up and getting more confidence in what we know and what we can bring to the privacy conversation: Namely, our background and relationship with local communities.”
Bloomberg's editors weigh in:
It has long been clear that the National Security Agency's mass collection of U.S. phone records was intrusive, unpopular and ineffective at preventing terrorism. Now a court has found it illegal, too. [...]
Legal rationale aside, this program was always an odd duck in the menagerie of NSA operations exposed by Edward Snowden -- most of which are governed by elaborate rules to protect Americans from snooping and many of which have proven crucial in protecting national security.
The phone-records program, by contrast, intentionally collected the data of U.S. citizens. It didn't differentiate between the guilty and the innocent. And two comprehensive reviews, several members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a federal judge have all come to the conclusion that it was ineffective in achieving its stated goals.
The San Francisco Chronicle has a broad view take of the ruling:
The case takes on a special urgency for Congress, which is rewriting the rules on surveillance. The court took aim at one of the most troubling interpretations of the Patriot Act. Section 215 of the law allowed the government to collect “any tangible things” that were believed “relevant” to a terrorist investigation.
This proviso was exploited to the max. During the administration of President George W. Bush, spy agency lawyers pushed the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to rubber-stamp ever wider collections of phone data. [...] The case should motivate Congress to repair the damage in a way that prevents spy-world overreach. It’s reassuring to know that both Republicans and Democrats think the wide-open language of Section 215 should be greatly restricted. The Obama administration does as well. A new law, approved by the House Judiciary Committee last week, keeps the data collection in the hands of phone companies and requires a higher degree of suspicion before intelligence operatives could review the data.
On a final note,
Kimberly Atkins previews the upcoming fight to reform the bill:
A bombshell federal court ruling has set up a new showdown between the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the government’s right to dragnet citizens’ cellphone data in the name of counterterrorism.
But that battle may be just the opening act to the main event down the road at the U.S. Supreme Court, which could soon be asked to
decide if the National Security Agency’s program violates Americans’ constitutional rights.