Congress or the courts must put a stop to these unreasonable blanket seizures of data and end the jurisdiction of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to secretly adjudicate the constitutionality of surveillance programs.

Through a series of legal contortions, the Obama administration has argued that Congress, since 9/11, intended to implicitly authorize mass surveillance. But this strategy mostly consists of wordplay, fear-mongering and a highly selective reading of the law. Americans deserve better from the White House — and from President Obama, who has seemingly forgotten the constitutional law he once taught.

After the long push to rein in overbroad surveillance powers, we are very pleased that the president announced his intent to end the bulk collection of Americans' phone records. Ending this dragnet collection will go a long way toward restoring Americans' constitutional rights and rebuilding the public's trust.

Under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

This section of the Patriot Act, the law upon which the telephony metadata collection is justified, grants access to certain business records for foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations.

While the details of FISA-related investigations, including requests for business records, are classified, under Section 215 records can be produced only if they are the type of records that could be obtained pursuant to a grand jury subpoena or other court process.

Application of the Fourth Amendment depends on whether the person invoking its protection can claim a "legitimate expectation of privacy" that has been invaded by government action. Petitioner in all probability entertained no actual expectation of privacy in the phone numbers he dialed, and even if he did, his expectation was not "legitimate."

This report clarifies the differences between the two intelligence collection programs publicly disclosed in June 2013 and identifies potential issues.

The leadership of both parties, as well as the White House, vocally opposed weakening the NSA's ability to conduct surveillance. But Amash still managed to mount a strong defense — which suggests that momentum is building for critics of the NSA.