Secret court approves three more months of NSA phone snooping

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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/3/secret-court-approves-three-more-months-nsa-phone-/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

The secret court that oversees the nation’s intelligence activities renewed its approval of the National Security Agency’s telephone-records program on Friday, granting the government a new three-month window to collect data on all Americans’ phone calls.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s office announced the court’s ruling in a statement, though officials didn’t make the ruling itself public, saying it was going through declassification procedures.

The decision marks the 36th time the program has been approved by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

“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,” Shawn Turner, spokesman for Mr. Clapper, said.

Last month a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled that the NSA’s phone-records program was likely unconstitutional, but another federal judge in New York concluded the opposite. The Obama administration has said it is appealing the adverse ruling.