The National Security Agency programme that collects information on the phone calls of tens of millions of Americans suffered its most significant legal setback when it was ruled illegal by a federal appeals court on Thursday.
周四，美国国家安全局(NSA)通过数以千万计美国人的电话收集信息的计划遭遇最大法律挫折，原因是当日一家联邦上诉法庭裁定该计划非法。
The three-judge panel ruled that the programme exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden was not permitted by the Patriot Act, the sweeping counterterror bill passed by Congress in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
这一由三名法官组成的小组裁定，《爱国者法案》(Patriot Act)并不许可这一由NSA前合同工爱德华•斯诺登(Edward Snowden)曝光的计划。《爱国者法案》是9•11恐怖袭击之后，美国国会通过的一项全面反恐议案。

The ruling comes at a politically sensitive moment for the NSA as Congress is beginning to debate whether to renew the section of the Patriot Act, which had been used to justify the bulk collection programme.
对于NSA来说，这一裁决的出台正值一个政治敏感时期，因为国会正要开始就是否更新《爱国者法案》的一个章节开展辩论，而该章节一直被用来为大规模信息收集计划提供法律依据。
Although intelligence officials have said the data are critical for counter-terrorism missions, there is a strong push in Congress to either abolish the programme or place substantial limits on it.
虽然情报机构的官员曾表示这些数据对反恐任务至关重要，但是美国国会依然在强势推动对此类计划的改革，他们要求要么废除该计划，要么对其加以大量限制。
The judges from the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit did not address the issue of whether the data collection programme violated the constitution and its prohibition against “unreasonable seizures and searches”.
来自美国联邦上诉法院第二巡回审判庭的法官并未提到，这一数据收集计划是否违反了宪法及宪法对“无理搜查和扣押”的禁止。
However, in a 97-page ruling, they said that the section of the Patriot Act, which allows law enforcement to collect business records that are considered relevant to counterterror investigations, could not be used to allow such broad sweeps of call data.
不过，在长达97页的判决书中，法官们表示《爱国者法案》的一章不能用来作为批准这类全面电话数据收集计划的法律依据。该章节允许执法机构收集被视为与反恐调查密切相关的商业记录。
“The statutes to which the government points have never been interpreted to authorise anything approaching the breadth of the sweeping surveillance at issue here,” wrote Judge Gerard Lynch wrote for the panel. “The sheer volume of information sought is staggering.”
替该法官小组执笔的杰勒德•林奇法官(Judge Gerard Lynch)写道：“在此处涉及的问题上，全面监控计划涵盖的范围太大，政府所援引法规的任何司法解释从未批准如此大范围的监控。所搜集信息的规模之大是惊人的。”
The ruling added: “Such expansive development of government repositories of formerly private records would be an unprecedented contraction of the privacy expectations of all Americans.”
该裁决书补充说：“政府对原本的私人记录的内容做如此大幅度的扩张存储，会史无前例地压缩所有美国人对个人隐私的预期。”