The U.S. Department of Justice will appeal a district judge's opinion saying a phone records collection program at the National Security Agency likely violates the U.S. Constitution.
The DOJ on Friday filed an appeal of Judge Richard Leon's December 16 ruling in Klayman v. Obama. Leon, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ruled then that the NSA's mass collection of U.S. phone records likely violates the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Leon wrote that James Madison, author of the U.S. Constitution, would be "aghast" at the scope of the NSA program.
The DOJ, on behalf of President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and NSA Director General Keith Alexander, appealed Leon's decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The DOJ has defended the phone records program, saying judges on the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court have approved the program on multiple occasions.
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