Judge: NSA Phone Spying Is Legal

A federal judge in New York decided Friday that the NSA’s mass collection of phone data is lawful. In his opinion on the lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, U.S. District Judge William Pauley argued that the program was part of the government’s post 9/11 attempt to adapt “to confront a new enemy: a terror network capable of orchestrating attacks across the world.” In his opinion, Pauley wrote that, “The collection of breathtaking amounts of information unprotected by the Fourth Amendment does not transform that sweep into a Fourth Amendment search,” referring to the prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure.