We know that the Department of Justice has been after phone records at the Associated Press and Fox News. We know they used a court order, one they attempted to keep secret, to obtain the emails of James Rosen. If those two items trouble you, this next item should make you start looking over your shoulder with more than a little trepidation. According to new reports, the Nationals Security Agency has a secret court order to collect phone records from Verizon. This court order is indiscriminate in nature, meaning they are collecting more than a few phone records. From what I understand, they are collecting every phone call on its system. That isn’t a pleasant thought.
The Guardian – The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon,
one of America’s largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.
The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.
The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.
The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.
Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.
The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government’s domestic spying powers.
Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.
I didn’t like this practice when the Bush administration was engaged in it and I like it even less now. I have briefly read through the court order which can be read at the link included in the quote from The Guardian. It is only four pages long and does not include the reasons given for the court order. We do not know why the NSA and the FBI requested this collection of phone records, why they chose to collect information only from Verizon, or why Judge Roger Vinson granted their request. I would like to see all that information, as I think it would make for some interesting reading.
I can’t wait for the Obama administration to be forthcoming with their reasoning behind this court order. I wonder what their excuse will be this time?
