WASHINGTON (AP) – The director of national intelligence today declassified more documents that outline how the National Security Agency (NSA) was first authorized to start collecting bulk phone and Internet records in the hunt for al-Qaida terrorists and how a court eventually gained oversight of the programme, after the Justice Department complied with a federal court order to release its previous legal arguments for keeping the programmes secret.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper explained in a statement today that President George W. Bush first authorized the spying in October 2001, as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Programme, just after the September 11 attacks. Bush disclosed the programme in 2005.
The Terrorist Surveillance Programme – which had to be extended every 30 to 60 days by presidential order – eventually was replaced by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law that requires a secret court to approve the bulk collection.
Clapper also released federal court documents from successive intelligence directors arguing to keep the programmes secret, after a California judge this fall ordered the administration to declassify whatever details already had been revealed as part of the White House’s campaign to justify the NSA surveillance.
Former agency contractor Edward Snowden first made the surveillance programmes public in leaks to the media.
A senior intelligence official today confirmed that the documents were released as part of two long-running class-actions cases against the NSA in California. The official said that at the judge’s direction the administration reviewed prior declarations in order to relate information that is no longer classified and determined what could be released.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to describe the court case by name.
President Barack Obama hinted yesterday that he would consider some changes to NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records to address the public’s concern about privacy. His comments came in a week where a federal judge declared NSA’s collection programme “unconstitutional”, and a presidential advisory panel suggested 46 changes to NSA operations.