Judge's strike at U.S. surveillance won't be last word

[Cali_Democrat]

Kevin Johnson and Richard Wolf, USA TODAY 6:28 p.m. EST December 17, 2013

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Yet for all of his colorful phrasing (he described the NSA's collection of millions of Americans' phone records as "Orwellian&quot , Leon's is far from the last word in a debate that began six months ago with the unauthorized disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Leon's stinging rebuke flies in the face of decisions rendered in secret by 15 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges who have approved the widespread snooping every 90 days since 2006. It also challenges a 1979 decision in which the Supreme Court denied privacy protections to telephone records.

Those decisions and others, including a November ruling by a federal judge in California upholding the sweeping phone data collection program, form the basis for the government's claimed authority to conduct such surveillance operations. Now they appear destined to be vetted in full — and in public — for the first time by the nation's highest legal authorities.

"Only the Supreme Court can resolve the question on the constitutionality of the NSA's program,'' said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., one of the strongest advocates for the surveillance programs. "It has been more than 30 years since the court's original decision of constitutionality, and I believe it is crucial to settling the issue once and for all.''

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/12/17/nsa-surveillance-court-judge-leon-snowden/4070899/

What's interesting about Leon's ruling is that he stayed his own ruling....meaning that the NSA can continue its program in the interim.

Perhaps he is resigned to the fact that these kinds of surveillance techniques will continue.