NSA Court Ruling Shocks All

Many people on both sides of the argument were shocked at the news that a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit ruled the NSA's bulk collection of phone records as illegal.

The news struck Senator Mitch McConnell particularly hard, as he has been one of the main proponents for maintaining the original legislation of the Patriot Act, which was what called for these massive phone record collections initially.

The House looks to be ready to pass a bill called the USA Freedom Act that would further combat the harboring of these phone records. Under this new law, the NSA would still have the ability to analyze phone calls, but would not own them in bulk. The phone companies would keep these records and freely be able to dispose of them after 18 months, which is much shorter than the 5 years in which the NSA currently keeps their calls on file.

Surprisingly, Thursday's ruling was not influenced by the ACLU's argument that harboring phone records in bulk is unconstitutional.

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