NSA may continue to collect phone call metadata

The NSA is allowed to continue to collect metadata from telephone conversations. That was decided by a higher court on Friday. With this, an earlier verdict that called collecting the data illegal will be thrown into the trash.

Privacy advocates went to court two years ago after whistleblower Edward Snowden’s disclosures. They tried to stop the collection of metadata by the NSA. A judge agreed at the time, in December 2013. He called collecting the data – the time of the calls and the numbers that were called – in violation of privacy legislation.

A higher court, the United States Court of Appeals in Columbia, ruled Friday that the verdict was wrong. An activist who brought the case could not prove that the NSA collected his data, according to the three lawyers. The activist called this a “disgrace” according to The Wall Street Journal and he is also said to have claimed that “a misinformed freshman law student could have written this statement in a day.”

Incidentally, the judgment of the Court of Appeals no longer has much to offer. The US Senate already passed another law in June that stated that under modified rules the US government may continue to collect telephone data until 2019. The only major difference is that the bulk data must be stored with the telecom companies, and therefore no longer with the NSA. .

In the meantime, the NSA must remove the already collected metadata of Americans. The service had already stopped. From November 29, the data will no longer be used in studies. After that, they will be removed ‘as soon as possible’, it was previously announced. That was not possible before because of the lawsuit. Friday’s ruling may cause the NSA to delete the data sooner.