Three judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to uphold the NSA’s bulk spying program, rebuking a 2013 ruling that disputed the program’s legality and called the technology “almost Orwellian.”

In the December 2013 ruling, Judge Richard Leon of District of Columbia’s Federal District Court wrote that the program was likely in violation of the 4th Amendment. The 2013 ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed by several plaintiffs and led by Larry Klayman, challenging the spying program. It was the first time that a public court had acknowledged a problem with the program’s constitutionality.

According to National Journal, the Republican-nominated judges ruled Friday that the plaintiffs challenging the program’s constitutionality do not have the “standing” to do so, and the ruling “reaffirmed Friday that the plaintiff did not demonstrate the ‘concrete and particularized’ injury required to be able to sue because he could not prove that his own metadata was caught up in the NSA’s dragnet.”

A separate ruling in May from the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals had deemed the NSA’s data collection program illegal, but the FISA court was later authorized to continue the collection.

Due to the passage of the USA Freedom Act, the program is scheduled to end on November 29, 2015.