Score another one for privacy: a federal judge has ruled that the once-secret collections of phone records -- which were all revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden -- is unconstitutional. 

CNN is reporting that U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said the National Security Agency's bulk collection of metadata -- phone records of the time and numbers called without any disclosure of content -- apparently violates privacy rights.

"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," said Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush. "Surely, such a program infringes on 'that degree of privacy' that the Founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment."

WTVR, the CBS affiliate in Virginia, obtained a statement from whistleblower Edward Snowden. In the statement, distributed by journalist Glenn Greenwald who first reported the leaks, Snowden said he acted on the belief that the mass surveillance program would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that Americans deserved a judicial review.

"Today, a secret program authorized by a secret court was, when exposed to the light of day, found to violate Americans' rights. It is the first of many," according to Snowden, who is living in Russia under a grant of asylum to avoid prosecution over the leaks in the United States.

The NSA has admitted it received secret court approval to collect vast amounts of metadata from telecom giant Verizon and leading Internet companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo and Facebook. However, of all the service providers, only Verizon voluntarily turned over their data to the government; the others were forced to do so via subpoena.