The embattled National Security Agency scored a victory on Friday, as a U.S. district judge ruled their controversial phone surveillance programs as constitutionally legal.

U.S. District Judge William Pauley stated that the NSA’s surveillance was legal under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

“The question for this court is whether the government’s bulk telephony metadata program is lawful.  This court finds it is.  But the question of whether that program should be conducted is for the other two coordinate branches of government to decide,” continued the ruling by Pauley, a 1998 appointee by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Other organizations continued to voice dissent.  “We are extremely disappointed with this decision, which misinterprets the relevant statutes, understates the privacy implications of the government’s surveillance and misapplies a narrow and outdated precedent to read away core constitutional protections,” said Jameel Jaffer, the Deputy Legal Director for the American Civil Liberties Union.  The ACLU launched the initial suit.

The program was made public earlier in 2013 following leaks of classified information by Edward Snowden, resulting in substantial public backlash.  It was discovered the agency was storing metadata of major U.S. telecommunications providers, including traffic analysis, detailed call information, and social network analysis.

Friday’s ruling was an about-face from a ruling only a week ago from U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of Geroge W. Bush.

“I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” stated Leon. “Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the Founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.

However, Pauley, along with other proponents, continue to speculate about how the program’s work could be a strong defensive tool against the possibility of future terrorist activity.  Despite the strong case made on Friday, the issue remains a contentious debate.