[4][5] In one particular revelation, The Guardian reported that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, at the request of the NSA, had ordered Verizon to hand over several months' worth of personal communications records for many of its customers.

[8] Pauley also held that the data collection was supported by the NSA's internal procedures that were in turn authorized under security-oriented statutes like the Patriot Act.

We categorically reject the notion that the threat of terrorism requires citizens of democratic countries to surrender the freedoms that make democracies worth defending.

[1] Judge Gerard E. Lynch ruled that the "staggering" amount of information collected by the NSA was a violation of the Fourth Amendment and the Patriot Act.

[16] According to the ACLU, "following the passage of the USA Freedom Act, the government petitioned FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] to allow the NSA to restart the program, arguing that the new law allows it to continue bulk collection during a 180-day transition period.

[19] The ACLU argued that the previous ruling did not allow data collection during that transition period, but a motion to this effect was ultimately rejected by the Second Circuit, because it complied with the requirements of the new USA Freedom Act.

[21] This resulted in a split precedent, which in turn caused significant confusion over whether NSA surveillance violated the Constitution, along with calls for a definitive Supreme Court decision on the matter.

[23] As a result, several commentators noted that courts had thus far largely avoided difficult decisions on whether modern telecommunications surveillance comports with Fourth Amendment requirements for search and seizure and related warrant procedures,[24][25] or whether older precedents like Smith v. Maryland were still relevant in light of new technologies.