Seven years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle of the National Security Administration's (NSA) mass surveillance programme; the federal appellate court has ruled that the programme was unlawful and possibly unconstitutional.
The court found that the US intelligence agencies that publicly defended the programme, which authorised spying on American citizens, were not telling the truth and found no evidence that it led to the arrest of any terrorist suspects.
The ruling handed down by Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said that the NSA broke the law with the warrantless collection of phone metadata or bulk records of call history of millions of Americans.
The court observed that collecting this information of American citizens violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In its ruling, the court concluded that the NSA's phone record collection was irrelevant to their convictions and possibly unconstitutional.
The NSA's mass surveillance programme was first exposed by former contractor Edward Snowden in 2013. Amid mass public outcry following the disclosure, the agency defended the programme claiming that it was in the interest of national security and helped thwart terror attacks.
As a whistleblower, Snowden was forced to flee the country and faces espionage charges in the US to this day. Whistleblowers have long been persecuted in the US under both Democrat, and Republican-led governments for exposing unlawful acts that threaten the status quo.
After the ruling, Edward Snowden said that it was a vindication of his decision to blow the whistle on the NSA's programme.
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