On May 7, 2015, in Am. Civil Liberties Union v. Clapper, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated the district court's judgment and held that plaintiffs were not precluded from filing suit under §215 of the PATRIOT Act (No. 14-42-CV, (2d Cir. May 7, 2015)).

This appeal concerned the legality of the bulk telephone metadata collection program, under which the National Security Agency (NSA) collected in bulk the metadata associated with telephone calls made by and to Americans, and aggregated that metadata into a repository that could later be queried. Current and former Verizon customers sued the government officials responsible for administering the telephone metadata program. The US District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the government's motion to dismiss plaintiff’s claims on the basis that, among other things, §215 of the PATRIOT Act precluded judicial review. Plaintiffs appealed.

The Administrative Procedure Act (APA), in waiving sovereign immunity for suits against the United States for relief other than money damages, established a broad right of judicial review of administrative action. In order to overcome the strong presumption in favor of judicial review of administrative action, the government had to demonstrate, by clear and convincing evidence, that Congress intended to preclude judicial review of actions taken by executives or administrative officials under §215.

The government argued that plaintiffs were precluded from bringing suit to challenge the NSA's telephone metadata program based on §215's:

The Second Circuit found that:

In light of the foregoing, the Second Circuit held that plaintiffs had a right of action under the APA and, in proceeding to the merits of the case, further held that the NSA's telephone metadata program exceeded the authority of §215 of the PATRIOT Act.