Late Friday, the Associated Press reported that the White House has now dropped its objections to the release of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's (FISA Court, or FISC) opinion authorizing the bulk collection of phone metadata from American telecommunications companies.

Citing an as-yet unpublished filing with the court, the AP said that the Justice Department now has no objection to the court releasing redacted versions of its opinion, omitting classified data.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit in November (PDF) asking the FISC to publish its opinions regarding the collection program and Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, under which the government claims authority to collect the data. Earlier this month, the Justice Department had filed a motion to deny the ACLU's request.

"The ACLU's motion should be dismissed because this Court and the Government have already released declassified versions of the opinions that the government has determined are responsive to the ACLU's motion after the Government conducted a classification review with the objective to release as much information as possible consistent with national security," the Justice Department said in its original December 6, 2013 filing (PDF).

A new review, the government said, would just duplicate the one they had already done. The Justice Department has now dropped that objection, perhaps in response to other suits against the bulk data collection.

The ACLU also has a separate suit (ACLU v. Clapper et al), in which it is asking a federal judge to declare the entire program unlawful, halt it, and purge all related records—admittedly a tall order.

However that suit may have better chances given that on December 16, US District Court Judge Richard Leon published an opinion finding that the bulk data collection was unconstitutional, a decision that almost certainly will be heard on appeal by higher courts.