for more on the ruling and what it means, i'm joined by devlin barrett of "the wall street journal." , welcome. what was it that the judges were asked to rule on? >> well, the lower court judge found that the program was almost certainly unconstitutional, and the government appealed that decision. what this panel said today was they reversed that lower court finding in the sense that they said, look, we're going to overturn what's called the preliminary injunction, we're not going to let that stand, and we're going to toss the case back to thrower court judge. so, now, that judge has to make some more findings of fact. but what the judges did beside just sending it back to the judge, they said they have a lot of skepticism about whether the person who is suing can prove his phone records were taken as part of this program. >> woodruff: so what's the practical effect of this? what does this nine for the n.s.a. and whether it can continue this collection of the so-called metadata? >> well, that collection in its current form will only continue till the end of november under a law passed