This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, May 14, 2015, and Caleb Brown in its decision

rejecting elements of NSA spying on Americans, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals treated data as property.

That may have great implications for the future of privacy and legal decisions governing surveillance.

Jim Harper is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, he discusses the court's opinion.

In the first case on NSA spying

to reach an appellate decision, the Second Circuit Court

of Appeals in New York ruled that Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act

did not provide the authority for mass collection of Americans telephone calling information. It's a very important

ruling and it harbingers well for Americans privacy, especially based on the way the court talked about these issues.

How did they treat data in this decision?

The court of course didn't say explicitly how it's going to work with data, but there are pieces of the decision that I think are very important.

One in its discussion of standing, the question whether the ACLU had standing to sue about collection of data.

The court emphasized that the seizure of data was an important

aspect. It's not just when data is searched that someone might suffer a Fourth Amendment

violation, but the seizure of it.

Seesher is a word we use with respect to property.

Data, the court had to say, is an item of property that can be seized. In this case, the information about what calls

the A.C. Leo and everyone else is making is jointly held. The telecommunications companies have it in bulk, but they have it subject

to restrictions they placed upon themselves for our benefit. It's like we have a covenant

running with the data that limits what they may do with it.

These are property concepts and the court used the property type concept to talk about

the seizure of data that gave a seal you standing.

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