On May 7, 2015, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals (the Court) ruled in ACLU v. Clapper that the National Security Agency (NSA) bulk metadata telephone collection program is unlawful.  The Court found that “the district court erred in ruling that § 215 [of the USA PATRIOT Act] authorizes the telephone metadata collection program, and instead hold that the telephone metadata program exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized and therefore violates § 215.”  Because the Court ruled that the program exceeds the scope of what Congress authorized, the Court “dismiss[ed] the complaint without reaching appellants’ constitutional arguments.” According to a news article, the “decision voided a December 2013 ruling in which U.S. District Judge William Pauley in Manhattan found the NSA program lawful. The appeals court sent the case back to him for further review.”