Whoa. In a huge ruling, the Second Circuit appeals court has ruled that the NSA‘s bulk phone records collection is not authorized by the PATRIOT Act. In other words, for all the debate about the renewal of Section 215 this month, which the government insists enables such bulk collection, this appeals court says „nope.“ The ruling is important on a number of different points, even though it doesn‘t touch on the constitutionality of the program. It does make some other key points though. The biggest, as Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (author of the PATRIOT Act) has said all along is that, contrary to the US government‘s claims, Section 215 does not authorize the bulk collection of any data.