On Thursday, a federal court ruled the NSA’s metadata collection illegal under the Patriot Act. While declining to rule the spying unconstitutional, the court made several important advances–including granting the ACLU standing to sue, and treating data as property that reveals sensitive information.
The court ruled that the program “exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized,” but said that Congress could still authorize it should they see fit.
Given the wide range of opinions on the NSA within the Republican party, there was an equally broad array of reactions to the ruling.
John McCain proclaimed himself “very worried” about the ruling.
“People seem to have forgotten 9/11,” he told Fox News. “We have to have the ability to monitor these communications.”
Mitch McConnell and Marco Rubio took the opportunity to rail against the USA Freedom Act–a reform bill that some privacy advocates support as an incremental improvement, while others oppose for its endorsement of surveillance.
McConnell said that the bill “will neither keep us safe nor protect our privacy.”
“The people that are raising hysteria, what is the problem we are solving here?” asked Rubio, speaking on the Senate floor.
“One day, I hope that I’m wrong, but one day there will be an attack that’s successful,” he continued. “The first question out of everyone’s mouth is going to be, why didn’t we know about it? And the answer better not be because this Congress failed to reauthorize a program that might have helped us know about it.”
Rand Paul–who opposed the last version of the USA Freedom Act rather than extend the Patriot Act–praised the ruling as a “monumental decision for all lovers of liberty.”
“I commend the federal courts for upholding our Constitution and protecting our Fourth Amendment rights,” he said in a statement. “While this is a step in the right direction, it is now up to the Supreme Court to strike down the NSA’s illegal spying program.”
Justin Amash, fellow privacy advocate, also commended the ruling and urged Congress not to pass the current legislation. “In light of this ruling, Congress must not proceed with the latest version of the USA Freedom Act,” he wrote on his Facebook. “While limiting certain types of bulk collection, the latest USA Freedom Act would authorize bulk collection of Americans’ records for the first time, thereby undoing some of the progress resulting from the Second Circuit’s decision.”
Instead he called for the return of the original USA Freedom Act, before amendments were introduced to expand surveillance.
Ted Cruz staked out a slightly different position. He welcomed the ruling, but said that he will continue to support the current USA Freedom Act.
“The court’s ruling today confirms what the American public already knew: The National Security Agency’s data collection program went too far in collecting the phone records of Americans,” he said. He then asserted that the current bill “ends the NSA’s unfettered data collection program once and for all, while at the same time preserving the government’s ability to obtain information to track down terrorists when it has sufficient justification and support for doing so.”
