bulk collection Klayman v. Obama metadata NSA surveillance
D.C. Circuit Reverses Important NSA Surveillance Ruling, Sends the Case Back to Lower Court
A divided panel of the D.C. Circuit has reversed a lower court decision that the NSA bulk metadata collection program violated the Fourth Amendment. The judges in Klayman v. Obama agreed that the plaintiff did not have sufficient evidence that his telephone records were collected. But the majority of the panel agreed that the plaintiff should be allowed to conduct "discovery" to prove standing, and remanded the case to the lower court. In 2013, EPIC filed a petition in the Supreme Court, In re EPIC, arguing that the NSA program was unlawful. In 2014, EPIC and a broad coalition urged the President to end the NSA surveillance program.