Patriot Act: Illegal?

Woke up this morning to find this in my newsfeed: A New York Times article about the NSA collection of bulk call data being illegal!

“Significant”, to quote Ed Snowdon.

In essence, the ruling comes to the conclusion that

a provision of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, known as Section 215, cannot be legitimately interpreted to allow the bulk collection of domestic calling records.

This is the first time ever, that a higher court has reviewed this program and defined at least a section of it as being illegal. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for anyone having the slightest interest in privacy and security to read this article, the details around the ruling and the consequences to expect from it.

Speaking of the consequences, however, I am asking myself: When in the past has any national security and/or investigative agency been acting within the boundaries of legitimacy? Best case is: they extend’em … I dearly hope, that one consequence of this is to continue surveillance practice on a legal basis where applicable and tremendously increasing transparency about it!