Secret Court to NSA: Keep Up the Spying

FISA court ruling continues pattern of reauthorizing the NSA's 'almost Orwellian' bulk telephone metadata collection

Andrea Germanos

Common Dreams

 

The NSA can continue its bulk collection of telephone metadata—a program a federal judge slammed as "almost Orwellian"—the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said on Friday.

(Photo: Susan Melkisethian/cc/flickr)

A rally against mass surveillance. The decision allowing for a three-month continuation marks the 36th time the court has authorized this surveillance program.

In a statement issued Friday, the office of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated:

It is the administration's view, consistent with the recent holdings of the United States District Courts for the Southern District of New York and Southern District of California, as well as the findings of 15 judges of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on 36 separate occasions over the past seven years, that the telephony metadata collection program is lawful. The Department of Justice has filed an appeal of the lone contrary decision issued by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

That contrary ruling was issued last month by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon, who declared, “I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval."

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