NSA Surveillance Challenges Moving Through Courts

While Congress mulls how to curtail the NSA's collection of Americans' telephone records, civil liberties groups are looking to legal challenges already underway in the courts. 

Three appeals courts are hearing lawsuits against the bulk phone records program, creating the potential for an eventual Supreme Court review.  

Meanwhile, judges are grappling with the admissibility in terror prosecutions of evidence gained through the NSA's warrantless surveillance. 

Advocates say the flurry of activity shows how courts are becoming increasingly involved in the debate over surveillance, which was once held primarily behind closed doors. 

President Barack Obama has called for an end to bulk phone record collection. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, is seeking a vote on a bill that would do just that.