ABC News is reporting that U.S. District Judge William Pauley has declared the National Security Agency’s (NSA) phone surveillance program is legal.
The judge referenced the Sept. 11 attacks as something that possibly could have been intercepted if the program had been in place at the time. In a written opinion, Judge Pauley indicated the program “represents the government’s counter-punch” to eliminate al-Qaida’s terror network by connecting fragmented and fleeting communications.
He added, “The government learned from its mistake and adapted to confront a new enemy: a terror network capable of orchestrating attacks across the world. It launched a number of counter-measures, including a bulk telephony metadata collection program — a wide net that could find and isolate gossamer contacts among suspected terrorists in an ocean of seemingly disconnected data.”
Read the full report at ABCNews.
