The scale of America's surveillance state was laid bare on Thursday as senior politicians revealed that the US counter-terrorism effort had swept up swaths of personal data from the phone calls of millions of citizens for years.
After the revelation by the Guardian of a sweeping secret court order that authorised the FBI to seize all call records from a subsidiary of Verizon, the Obama administration sought to defuse mounting anger over what critics described as the broadest surveillance ruling ever issued.
Busty Desi⚡Call Girls in Vasundhara Ghaziabad >༒8448380779 Escort Service
Anger swells after NSA phone records collection revelations
1. UK and World news
A White House spokesman said that laws governing such orders 'are something that
have been in place for a number of years now'. Photograph: Rex Features
The scale of America's surveillance state was laid bare on Thursday as
senior politicians revealed that the US counter-terrorism effort had swept
up swaths of personal data from the phone calls of millions of citizens for
years.
After the revelation by the Guardian of a sweeping secret court order that
authorised the FBI to seize all call records from a subsidiary of Verizon,
the Obama administration sought to defuse mounting anger over what
critics described as the broadest surveillance ruling ever issued.
A White House spokesman said that laws governing such orders "are
something that have been in place for a number of years now" and were
vital for protecting national security. Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic
chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, said the Verizon court
order had been in place for seven years. "People want the homeland
kept safe," Feinstein said.
News US World Sports Comment Culture Business Money Environment Science Travel Tech Media Life & style Data
On the Guardian today
Anger swells after NSA phone records
collection revelations
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Find out more hereHide
Anger swells after NSA phone records
collection revelations
Senior politicians reveal that US counter-terrorism efforts have
swept up personal data from American citizens for years
• NSA taps in to internet giants' systems to mine user data,
secret files reveal
Email
Tweet this
Share 7556
Share
57
Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman in Washington
The Guardian, Thursday 6 June 2013 18.58 EDT
Jump to comments (1334)
World news
Obama administrationWorld newsNews
Article history
World news
Obama administration ·
United States · US politics
· Barack Obama · Privacy
· US national security
Business
Verizon Communications
Technology
Data protection ·
Telecoms
Law
US constitution and civil
liberties
More news
More on this story
PRISM scandal: tech
giants flatly deny
allowing NSA direct
access to servers
Silicon Valley
executives insist they
did not know of secret
PRISM program that
grants access to emails
and search history
NSA taps in to internet
giants' systems to mine
user data, secret files
MobileEdition: US About us Subscribe
UK and World news Search
2. But as the implications of the blanket approval for obtaining phone data
reverberated around Washington and beyond, anger grew among other
politicians.
Intelligence committee member Mark Udall, who has previously warned
in broad terms about the scale of government snooping, said: "This sort
of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of
government overreach I've said Americans would find shocking." Former
vice-president Al Gore described the "secret blanket surveillance" as
"obscenely outrageous".
The Verizon order was made under the provisions of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) as amended by the Patriot Act of
2001, passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. But one of the authors of
the Patriot Act, Republican congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, said he
was troubled by the Guardian revelations. He said that he had written to
the attorney general, Eric Holder, questioning whether "US constitutional
rights were secure".
He said: "I do not believe the broadly drafted Fisa order is consistent with
the requirements of the Patriot Act. Seizing phone records of millions of
innocent people is excessive and un-American."
The White House sought to defend what it called "a critical tool in
protecting the nation from terrorist threats". White House spokesman
Josh Earnest said Fisa orders were used to "support important and
highly sensitive intelligence collection operations" on which members of
Congress were fully briefed.
"The intelligence community is conducting court-authorized intelligence
activities pursuant to a public statute with the knowledge and oversight of
Congress and the intelligence community in both houses of Congress,"
Earnest said.
He pointed out that the order only relates to the so-called metadata
surrounding phone calls rather than the content of the calls themselves.
"The order reprinted overnight does not allow the government to listen in
on anyone's telephone calls," Earnest said.
"The information acquired does not include the content of any
communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to
call details, such as a telephone number or the length of a telephone
call."
But such metadata can provide authorities with vast knowledge about a
caller's identity. Particularly when cross-checked against other public
records, the metadata can reveal someone's name, address, driver's
licence, credit history, social security number and more. Government
analysts would be able to work out whether the relationship between two
people was ongoing, occasional or a one-off.
The disclosure has reignited longstanding debates in the US over the
proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers.
Ron Wyden of Oregon, a member of the Senate intelligence committee
who, along with Udell, has expressed concern about the extent of US
government surveillance, warned of "sweeping, dragnet surveillance". He
said: "I am barred by Senate rules from commenting on some of the
details at this time, However, I believe that when law-abiding Americans
call their friends, who they call, when they call, and where they call from
is private information.
"Collecting this data about every single phone call that every American
makes every day would be a massive invasion of Americans' privacy."
'Beyond Orwellian'
NSA collecting phone records of
millions of Verizon customers daily
NSA taps in to internet giants' systems
to mine user data, secret files reveal
Black Sabbath: 'We used to have
cocaine flown in by private plane'
The Cronut – the US pastry sensation
that must cross the Atlantic
World news
World news
Music
Life and style
reveal
Revealed: NSA
collecting phone
records of millions of
Americans daily
The National Security
Agency: surveillance
giant with eyes on
America
Eric Holder: Justice
Department will not
prosecute reporters
doing their job
Civil liberties: American
freedom on the line
Court order forcing
Verizon to hand over
call data 'in place since
2006'
Obama's Verizon
surveillance reveals
massive erosion of US
civil liberties
Telephone metadata
and what it can tell the
authorities about you
Could it happen in
Britain?
Verizon forced to
hand over telephone
data – full court ruling
Obama's Verizon phone
records collection
carries on Bush's work
3. Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union,
said: "From a civil liberties perspective, the program could hardly be any
more alarming. It's a program in which some untold number of innocent
people have been put under the constant surveillance of government
agents.
"It is beyond Orwellian, and it provides further evidence of the extent to
which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the
demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies."
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 under President Obama.
The order names Verizon Business Services, a division of Verizon
Communications. In its first-quarter earnings report, published in April,
Verizon Communications listed about 10 million commercial lines out of a
total of 121 million customers. The court order, which lasts for three
months from 25 April, does not specify what type of lines are being
tracked. It is not clear whether any additional orders exist to cover
Verizon's wireless and residential customers, or those of other phone
carriers.
Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a
specific, named target suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or
foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets. The unlimited
nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely
unusual.
Senators Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and
Saxby Chambliss, the vice chairman, speak to reporters about the NSA cull of phone
records. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Feinstein said she believed the order had been in place for some time.
She said: "As far as I know this is the exact three-month renewal of what
has been the case for the past seven years. This renewal is carried out
by the [foreign intelligence surveillance] court under the business records
section of the Patriot Act. Therefore it is lawful. It has been briefed to
Congress."
The Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement that the secret
Vladimir Putin and his wife announce
their separation in TV interview
Today's best video
Smartphone face-off: HTC One v Samsung
Galaxy S4
Charles Arthur compares two of the most popular
new smartphones: the HTC One and the Samsung
Galaxy S4
71 comments
Surfing the perfect
wave
Michael Fordham
travels from San
Francisco to LA lapping
up American surf
culture
37 comments
How to dress:
flapper dresses
Jess Cartner-Morley
picks out some Gatsby-
esque gems from the
high street
José Mourinho:
Cristiano Ronaldo
'thinks he knows
everything'
New Chelsea manager
criticises Ronaldo
Guardian US on Twitter
The latest news and comment from our team of
reporters, writers and editors in the US
Auto update every minute On | Off
moorehn: Here's more on all the tech
companies denying any knowledge of
PRISM. http://t.co/D32TPWwARB
about 0 minutes ago
moorehn: RT @ReformedBroker: This
powerpoint slide designed by the people in
World news