while the particular NSA program at issue had been discontinued in 2011 so its legality did not need to be addressed. On the ruling, The Washington Post noted: "NSA officials... now stand accused of presiding over a program whose capabilities were deemed by the judge to be 'Orwellian' and likely illegal." Edward Snowden issued a statement in response to the ruling, saying in part: I acted on my belief that the NSA's mass surveillance programs would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts. Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans' rights. It is the first of many.While his ruling deemed NSA telecommunications surveillance to be substantially illegal, Leon stayed the ruling and gave the government six months to appeal. Subsequent developments The government exercised Leon's invitation to appeal. On November 20, 2015, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a short memorandum opinion that vacated Leon's ruling and held that the plaintiffs failed to meet the heightened burden of proof regarding the standing required for an injunction against a government program. This resulted in the case being remanded back to the District Court for further proceedings in which the matter of the plaintiffs' standing would be discussed further. In 2017, Leon dismissed the suit because Klayman and his co-plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate the actual harm necessary to achieve standing. Impact The ruling in Klayman v. Obama directly conflicted with a different District Court ruling in American Civil Liberties Union v. Clapper, in which the Fourth Amendment was not discussed in favor of an analysis of the effectiveness of the NSA's efforts to fight terrorism. This resulted in a split precedent, which in turn caused significant confusion over whether NSA surveillance violated the Constitution, along with calls for a definitive Supreme Court decision on the matter. While acknowledging Leon's attempts to address the Fourth Amendment implications of NSA data surveillance, legal commentators largely concluded that the ruling left the constitutional questions vague and poorly addressed. Others noted the continuing conflict between the Fourth Amendment and surveillance procedures enabled by the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which also remained unclear after the ruling. See also Litigation over global surveillance Mass surveillance in the United States American Civil Liberties Union v. Clapper