ACLU: “In an important decision, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ordered the government to review for release the court’s opinions on the meaning, scope, and constitutionality of Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The ruling is on a motion filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of the Nation’s Capital, and Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Access Information Clinic. Section 215, which authorizes the government to obtain “any tangible things” relevant to foreign-intelligence or terrorism investigations, is the claimed legal basis for the NSA’s mass phone records collection program…In its ruling today, the court gave the government until October 4 to identify FISC opinions on Section 215 and set a timetable for declassification review. The court’s order covers all opinions except for those covered by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the ACLU in October 2011 that is still being litigated in New York. On Tuesday, in response to that FOIA lawsuit, the government released a number of FISC opinions revealing the NSA repeatedly violated court-imposed limits on its surveillance powers. The government in that case has also agreed to release additional sets of documents by October 10 and October 31.”

• See also The NSA Machine: Too Big For Anyone To Understand