## Facts

- Federal officials implemented a program under § 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act to obtain telephony metadata from certain telecommunications providers pursuant to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) orders.
- The program collected, on an ongoing daily basis, call-detail metadata (e.g., originating and terminating numbers, date, time, and duration), but not call content or subscriber names/addresses.
- The NSA stored the metadata in a centralized database and permitted queries only under internal restrictions, including a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” standard for seed numbers tied to specified foreign terrorist organizations, with results extending through multiple contact “hops.”
- A leaked FISC order disclosed in June 2013 showed compelled daily production of Verizon Business Network Services call records.
- The ACLU entities, as current or recent Verizon Business customers, sued seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to halt the program and purge collected data.
- The government moved to dismiss and opposed a preliminary injunction.

## Issues

1. Whether bulk acquisition and querying of telephony metadata from providers constitutes an unreasonable search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
2. Whether the program violates the First Amendment by chilling associational and expressive activity.
3. Whether § 215 authorizes bulk production of telephony metadata and whether doctrines such as political question or state secrets bar adjudication.

## Decision

- The court found plaintiffs plausibly alleged standing based on their Verizon Business customer relationship and held the case was justiciable; it declined to dismiss on political question or state-secrets grounds.
- The court held the bulk metadata collection did not violate the Fourth Amendment because subscribers lack a reasonable expectation of privacy in dialed-number metadata conveyed to telephone companies.
- The court rejected the argument that the program’s scale and duration distinguish controlling precedent and treated differences in quantity as not changing the constitutional analysis.
- The court held plaintiffs did not establish a First Amendment violation where the program was not directed at compelled disclosure of membership lists or targeted interference with association, and where asserted chill was insufficient.
- The court concluded § 215 authorized the program as approved by the FISC under a broad “relevance” understanding and noted congressional reauthorization in that context.
- The court denied the preliminary injunction and granted the government’s motion to dismiss.

## Legal Principles

- Under the third-party doctrine, a person generally lacks a reasonable expectation of privacy in telephone routing and dialing information voluntarily conveyed to a service provider; obtaining such metadata from the provider is not a Fourth Amendment search under controlling precedent.
- A program’s breadth and aggregation of non-content telephony metadata, without more, does not necessarily alter Fourth Amendment treatment where binding precedent applies and use is subject to court-ordered and internal constraints.
- First Amendment associational-privacy doctrines most directly apply to compelled, targeted disclosure or demonstrated government interference; generalized or subjective chilling effects, without concrete targeting or burdens, are insufficient.
- Statutory “relevance” standards for compelled production may be construed broadly in intelligence investigations, and courts may give weight to repeated specialized-court approvals and congressional reauthorization when evaluating statutory authority.
- Preliminary injunctive relief is unavailable where plaintiffs fail to show likelihood of success on the merits and where asserted public interests favor continuation of a national-security program.

## Conclusion

The district court upheld the NSA’s bulk telephony metadata program, ruling that acquisition of call-detail metadata from telecommunications providers was not a Fourth Amendment search under controlling third-party doctrine precedent, that plaintiffs did not show an actionable First Amendment burden, and that § 215 authorized the collection, warranting dismissal and denial of injunctive relief.


Am. Civ. Liberties Union v. Clapper, 959 F. Supp. 2d 724 (S.D.N.Y. 2013)