[Cryptography] Appeals Court Rules NSA Phone Program Not Authorized by Patriot Act - WSJ

[Jim Gettys]

On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 8:11 PM, Tom Mitchell <mitch at niftyegg.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 7:53 AM, John Young <jya at pipeline.com> wrote:
>
>> Correction:
>>
>> The decision and three opinions
>>
>> Decision:
>> http://cryptome.org/2015/05/aclu-v-clapper-170.pdf
>
>
> "...the program exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized, we
> vacate the decision below dismissing the complaint without reaching
> appellants’ constitutional arguments."
>
> So a new law could authorize this because the constitutional issue has not
> been reached.
> Interesting....  caught simply spending money in unauthorized ways...
>
>
>
​In general, courts are loathe to set more precedent than they need.  This
is in general a "good thing", even though may be disappointing at the
moment.

Note that the ruling leaves the constitutional arguments on the table for a
new lawsuit, if need be, which I expect would be filed if ​
Congress passes such ​a law.  They were careful to make clear that they had
not ruled on the constitutional arguments.

Jim
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