A US judge has ruled the National Security Agency’s mass collection of telephone data may be unconstitutional. Federal District Judge Richard Leon said the electronic spy agency’s practice was an "arbitrary invasion". The agency’s collection of "metadata", including telephone numbers and times and dates of calls, was exposed by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The White House dismissed a suggestion Mr Snowden could receive amnesty if he stopped leaking documents. On Monday in a Washington DC federal court, Judge Leon called the NSA’s surveillance programme "indiscriminate" and an "almost Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States".
The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by conservative activist Larry Klayman, a user of a Verizon mobile telephone who challenged the NSA’s collection of metadata on his behalf and that of a client.
On Tuesday morning, US President Barack Obama met chief executives from the nation’s top technology companies – including Google and Apple. He was expected to discuss the NSA’s surveillance programmes as well as government information technology reforms; the legal ruling may also come up.