Edward Snowden reacts to the news, believes this won't be the last court to rule this

Dec 17, 2013 11:01 GMT  ·  By

A federal district judge has ruled that the NSA program that deals with collecting phone call records of American citizens is most likely in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Judge Richard J. Leon of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the government to put a stop to the collection of personal phone call data of two plaintiffs in the case and to destroy the records they had on them.

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” wrote the judge in the ruling.

He goes on to mention that such a program violates personal privacy as enshrined in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.

Government officials are quite likely going to appeal the decision, especially since they stated that the program was constitutional based on rulings coming from other judges.

Edward Snowden sent out a statement from Moscow, praising the ruling given out by the federal judge. “I acted on my belief that the NSA’s mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts,” said the whistleblower, who gave his statement to Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who has been involved in the story since the beginning, the New York Times reports.

“Today a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans’ rights. It is the first of many,” said Snowden.

The decision taken by the court on Monday is particularly important given the current context, when several government panels are analyzing the situation, considering whether to keep, reform or put a stop to the bulk data collection programs developed by the National Security Agency.