American National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden speaks to European officials via videoconference during a parliamentary hearing on mass surveillance at the European Council in Strasbourg, eastern France, on April 8, 2014. Snowden pleaded for new international norms on surveillance, to avoid the kinds of abuses committed by the NSA, especially as high-tech surveillance practices become widespread worldwide. AFP PHOTO / FREDERICK FLORIN (Photo credit should read FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP/Getty Images) A U.S. federal court has renewed the NSA’s warrantless collection of American’s phone records, marking the fourth time that the Justice Department has reauthorized the program since President Obama’s January pledge to reform such mass intelligence tactics. (FREDERICK FLORIN/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) — A U.S. federal court has renewed the National Security Agency’s warrantless collection of American’s phone records, marking the fourth time that the Justice Department has reauthorized the program since President Barack Obama’s January pledge to reform such mass intelligence tactics.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved the Justice Department’s request for a 90-day extension of one of the most controversial NSA surveillance programs, according to a Monday statement from Attorney General Eric Holder and the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

The FISA order is the fourth extension of the NSA’s mass phone record collection program amid Congress’ failure to pass the USA Freedom Act, aimed at restricting Section 215 government access to Americans’ phone data from previously targeted companies such as Verizon.

This comes after Obama’s vows to reform NSA spy tactics of U.S. citizens in January, in which he pledged “greater confidence that [Americans] rights are being protected, even as our intelligence and law-enforcement agencies maintain the tools they need to keep us safe.” Obama outlined plans to reform surveillance practices and boost transparency of the programs, “and that the government would establish a mechanism that preserves the capabilities we need without the government holding this bulk data.”

“As a first step in that transition, the President directed the Attorney General to work with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to ensure that, absent a true emergency, telephony metadata can only be queried after a judicial finding that there is a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the selection term is associated with an approved international terrorist organization,” reads the Monday intelligence statement.

Obama has stated he will wait for Congress to send him such a reform bill, but Congress has failed to enact reform despite more than one year of debate in both the Senate and the House.

The Monday intelligence briefing indicates that the president will continue to wait on Congress.

“The Administration welcomes the opportunity to work with the new Congress to implement the changes the President has called for. Given that legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the telephony metadata program, the government has sought a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program, as modified by the changes the President directed in January.”

The FISA court extension of the controversial program has angered privacy advocates and NSA critics, who have repeatedly urged Obama not to wait on the congressional gridlock.

“Nearly a year after President Obama promised to end the bulk collection of telephone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, his administration will once again ask the secret FISA Court to bless yet another extension of the program,” Amie Stepanovich, senior policy counsel with the Internet-freedom group Access, in a statement to the National Journal. “This is not acceptable. The president has the power to protect individual privacy and to immediately end this program—with no need for congressional action.”