NSA surveillance exposed by Snowden was illegal, court rules seven years on

Whistleblower revealed collection of phone records to Guardian Court says officials who defended dragnet were not telling truth Seven years after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the mass surveillance of Americans' telephone records, an appeals court has found the program was unlawful - and that the US intelligence leaders who publicly defended it were not telling the truth. Related: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily