A privacy group has won its bid to block the National Security Agency from destroying phone call records collected for surveillance purposes, Bloomberg.com reported.
The order not to destroy the records was issued by a U.S. District Judge as part of a privacy group's lawsuit against what it claims is the NSA's unlawful collection of phone records.
Judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco said the NSA is not to get rid of "any telephone metadata or 'call detail' records," Bloomberg.com reported.
The San Francisco-based Internet and civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation asked White to temporarily restrain the NSA from destroying the phone records, arguing they can be used as evidence for its lawsuits.
"If the government proceeds with its planned destruction of evidence, the evidence will be gone," said EFF legal director Cindy Cohn, Bloomberg.com reported. "This is by definition irreparable."
The group claims the NSA's surveillance operation violated the constitution. More specifically, the July 2013 lawsuit said the NSA violated the freedom of speech rights of religious, environmental and human rights groups, Bloomberg.com reported. Another 2008 lawsuit also challenges the agency's surveillance.
Cohn said the NSA knew it was ordered to preserve the records.
The NSA made arrangements to destroy the records after the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled on March 7 that the agency is banned from keeping phone records for more than five years, Bloomberg.com reported. The surveillance court said keeping records any longer goes against the privacy rights of those who had their data collected, and is thus more important than any lawsuit.
The surveillance court's ruling was "based on a mistaken belief that no preservation order existed for the material," Cohen said according to Bloomberg.com.
White scheduled another hearing for March 19 to determine whether or not the NSA can destroy the phone records.
