> "This is a big move forward, and will catalyze a great deal of change as court rulings can sometimes move faster than legislation."

Please let's not confuse the responsibilities of the courts and the responsibilities of the legislature. They're different for very good reason.

There's little to legislate here, anyway. What Snowden's revelations are targeted to doing is bringing the Government's actual behavior in line with the law, (in this case the 4th amendment of the Constitution). That's strictly the purview of the courts.

The bits that will require legislation (like "Data collected by the GCHQ on Americans should be treated the same as if it were collected on american soil") are loopholes in the wording of the law that the Government has exploited to do whatever it wanted to do. Closing technical loopholes like that may require legislation.

Agreed - they definitely have different roles, however if something is legislated and cannot be argued against in court as constitutional that complicates matters. I was thinking more along the lines of PATRIOT Act rewrites coming up in the next year and the awareness of oversight bodies in the legislature such as the intelligence committee that would be providing guidance and funding to agencies.

And it's when change doesn't happen with court rulings, or are hidden further, and then found out to be still true - then when does shit hit the fan? I could see this cycle occurring many times.