There is a lot to praise in the powerful ruling issued by a three-judge federal appeals panel in New York on Thursday, which held that the government’s vast, continuing and, until recently, secret sweep of Americans’ phone records is illegal.

But perhaps the most important message the unanimous decision sends is a simple one: Congress could not have intended to approve a program whose true scope almost no one outside the National Security Agency fully comprehended — that is, until Edward Snowden leaked its details to the world.

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Continua qui: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/opinion/the-illegal-phone-data-sweeps.html