The director of national intelligence declassified more documents that outline how the National Security Agency was first authorised to start collecting bulk phone and Internet records in the hunt for al-Qaida terrorists and how a court eventually gained oversight of the program, after the Justice Department complied with a federal court order to release its previous legal arguments for keeping the programs secret.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper explained in a statement yesterday that President George W. Bush first authorised the spying in October 2001, as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, just after the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush disclosed the program in 2005.
The Terrorist Surveillance Program which had to be extended every 30-60 days by presidential order eventually was replaced by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act a law that requires a secret court to OK the bulk collection.
The disclosures are part of the White House's campaign to justify the NSA surveillance, following leaks to the media about the classified programs by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. President Barack Obama hinted Friday that he would consider some changes to NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records to address the public's concerns about privacy.
His comments came in a week where a federal judge declared NSA's collection program "unconstitutional," and a presidential advisory panel suggested 46 changes to NSA operations. Those recommendations included forcing NSA to go to the court for every search of the phone records database and keeping that database in the hands of a third party not the government.
The judge said there was little evidence any terror plot had been thwarted by the program, known as Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The panel recommended continuing the program but seeking a court order for each NSA records search. Obama said he would announce his decisions in January.
"There has never been a comprehensive government release ... That wove the whole story together the timeline of authorising the programs and the gradual transition to (court) oversight," said Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group suing the NSA to reveal more about the bulk records programs. "Everybody knew that happened, but this is the first time I've seen the government confirm those twin aspects.
