A federal US court validated the approval for NSA to continue the controversial collection of American citizens' data in the dragnet.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court 's decision to greenlight the NSA 's mass surveillance of phone call metadata comes a year after Barack Obama promised to end the controversial program.
The legal authority for the surveillance program, which is set by Congress and was set to expire in early June, the National Journal reported. President Barack Obama promised to end the data collection as part of NSA included in a major policy initiative announced in January 2014.
The program has been extended five times for 14 or more months since then. White House officials have repeatedly stated that they want to work with Congress to terminate the program, whose surveillance value has been criticized by activists fighting for privacy protection.
For example, some critics claim that there is no evidence that the mass surveillance carried out by the NSA is effective in detecting future terrorist attacks.
An IC on the Record reveals to the Intel community the Justice Department's approval of the FISA decision to expand mass phone surveillance.
You can view the publication here.
“As the White House stated, the administration welcomes the opportunity to cooperate with the new Congress to implement the changes requested by the President,” says the joint statement from the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“Given that the legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the telephone metadata collection program, the government pursued an expansion of the existing program, as modified by the changes, which the President requested in January.”
The collection of call metadata is permitted under Section 215 of the U.S. Patriot Act.
