Patriot Act, the U.S. Congress clarified the parameters of the program in the USA Freedom Act, which was passed on June 2, 2015. That statute restored some electronic wiretapping techniques and reinstated several types of NSA authority that had expired under the Patriot Act. However, some surveillance powers previously enjoyed by the NSA were restricted. According to the ACLU, "following the passage of the USA Freedom Act, the government petitioned FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] to allow the NSA to restart the program, arguing that the new law allows it to continue bulk collection during a 180-day transition period. The ACLU argued that the previous ruling did not allow data collection during that transition period, but a motion to this effect was ultimately rejected by the Second Circuit, because it complied with the requirements of the USA Freedom Act. Impact The initial ruling in American Civil Liberties Union v. Clapper, in which the Southern District of New York ruled that the NSA phone metadata surveillance program was legal while employing no Constitutional arguments, directly conflicted with a different District Court ruling in Klayman v. Obama in which the Fourth Amendment was discussed prominently. 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 the later Circuit Court ruling in the Clapper case partially ameliorated the split precedent, it did so on procedural grounds related to provisions in the newly-passed USA Freedom Act, while again avoiding discussions of the conflict between that statute (plus its predecessor the Patriot Act) and the Fourth Amendment. As a result, several commentators noted that courts had thus far largely avoided difficult decisions on whether modern telecommunications surveillance comports with Fourth Amendment requirements for search and seizure and related warrant procedures, or whether older precedents like Smith v. Maryland were still relevant in light of new technologies. See also Litigation over global surveillance Mass surveillance in the United States Klayman v. Obama References External links Ruling in ACLU v. Clapper ACLU page on ACLU v. Clapper Legal documents of ACLU v. Clapper Initial complaint 2013 in United States case law 2015 in United States case law American Civil Liberties Union litigation Mass surveillance litigation