The Idaho mother who sued President Barack Obama over alleged unconstitutional telephone metadata collection has lost again in court. Anna Smith had her initial case dismissed in 2014, and this week her appeal met a similar fate.

On Tuesday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Smith, finding that her case was now moot in light of the new changes to the now-expired Section 215 of the Patriot Act.

Within the past year, Congress voted to end Section 215 but then substituted it with a similar law (called the USA Freedom Act) that leaves the phone metadata surveillance apparatus largely in place. The government no longer collects the data directly, but even former NSA Director Michael Hayden admitted in June 2015 that this legal change was pretty minor.

During oral arguments held in December 2014 , the judges seemed unconvinced that they should overturn the third-party doctrine established in, a landmark Supreme Court decision from 1979. That case found that a person has no privacy interest over information disclosed to a third-party, such as a telephone company. Privacy activists have been staunchly trying to challenge that holding for decades, with little success.

As such, the 9th Circuit concluded that "Smith’s claims related to the ongoing collection of metadata are moot and vacate and remand for their dismissal."

The court added that her remaining claims, "including her request that the government purge all of her metadata collected," would be sent back down to the United States District Court in Idaho to determine whether they are also moot.

David Greene, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that assisted in Smith v. Obama, told Ars that the finding that the case was moot was "not a surprise."

"We're pleased that the court distinguished the purge claims and sent those back to Judge Winmill to consider mootness," he e-mailed. "We

believe those claims are still viable and are confident that Judge Winmill will find that they are as well."