AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION v. CLAPPER

Docket No. 14-42-CV.

785 F.3d 787 (2015)

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York Civil Liberties Union, New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. James R. CLAPPER, in his official capacity as Director of National Intelligence, Michael S. Rogers, in his official capacity as Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Central Security Service, Ashton B. Carter, in his official capacity as Secretary of Defense, Loretta E. Lynch, in her official capacity as Attorney General of the United States, and James B. Comey, in his official capacity as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Defendants-Appellees.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Decided: May 7, 2015.


Attorney(s) appearing for the Case

Alexander Abdo , American Civil Liberties Union Foundation ( Jameel Jaffer , Patrick Toomey , Brett Max Kaufman , Catherine Crump , American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, N.Y.; Christopher T. Dunn , Arthur N. Eisenburg , New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, N.Y., on the brief), New York, N.Y., for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Stuart F. Delery , Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice ( Douglas N. Letter , H. Thomas Byron III , Henry C. Whitaker , Appellate Staff, Civil Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC; Preet Bharara , United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, N.Y.; David S. Jones , John D. Clopper , Emily E. Daughtry , Assistant United States Attorneys, New York, N.Y., on the brief), Washington, D.C., for Defendants-Appellees.

Laura K. Donohue , Georgetown University Law Center, Washington DC, Erwin Chemerinsky , University of California, Irvine School of Law, Irvine, CA, for Amici Curiae Former Members of the Church Committee and Law Professors in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Charles S. Sims , Proskauer Rose LLP, New York, N.Y., for Amici Curiae Senator Ron Wyden, Senator Mark Udall, and Senator Martin Heinrich in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Cindy Cohn , Mark Rumold , Andrew Crocker , Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco, CA, for Amici Curiae Experts in Computer and Data Science in Support of Appellants and Reversal.

John W. Whitehead , Douglas R. McKusick , The Rutherford Institute, Charlottesville, VA, Daniel L. Ackman , Law Office of Daniel Ackman, New York, N.Y., for Amicus Curiae The Rutherford Institute in Support of Appellants and Reversal.

Edward J. Davis , Linda Steinman , Lacy H. Koonce, III , Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, New York, N.Y., for Amicus Curiae PEN American Center, Inc., in Support of Appellants.

John Frazer , Law Office of John Frazer, PLLC, Fairfax, VA, for Amicus Curiae National Rifle Association of America, Inc., in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellants and Supporting Reversal.

Jonathan Hafetz , Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Gary D. Sesser , Stephen L. Kass , Michael Shapiro , Laura A. Zaccone , Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP, New York, N.Y., for Amicus Curiae Association of the Bar of the City of New York Supporting Plaintiffs-Appellants' Brief.

ROBERT D. SACK, Circuit Judge, concurs in the opinion of the Court and files a separate concurring opinion.


This appeal concerns the legality of the bulk telephone metadata collection program (the "telephone metadata program"), under which the National Security Agency ("NSA") collects in bulk "on an ongoing daily basis" the metadata associated with telephone calls made by and to Americans, and aggregates those metadata...

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