White House defends need to collect phone records

Michael Winter | USA TODAY

The Obama administration defended the National Security Agency's need to collect telephone records of U.S. citizens on Thursday, but fell short of confirming reports that Verizon, under orders from a secret court, has been giving the NSA its call records for millions of U.S. customers since April.

The Guardian reported Wednesday that Verizon has been required to turn over information on all domestic and international calls on an "ongoing, daily basis," even if customers are not suspected of a crime. The order, effective until July 19, was issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, The Guardian said, adding that it had obtained a copy of the order.

The contents of the calls are not reported, but "the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers and the time and duration of all calls," The Guardian writes.

The administration official, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to publicly discuss classified matters, called such information "a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats."

Verizon is prohibited from publicly disclosing the court order or the FBI's request on behalf of the NSA.

"We decline comment," Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman, told The Guardian.

The report by Glenn Greenwald includes this:

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 on a massive scale under President Obama. ...

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. FISA court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets. ...

The revelations are "likely to reignite long-standing debates in the U.S. over the proper extent of the government's domestic spying powers," Greenwald writes.

It wasn't known whether other cellphone companies have been hit with similar orders.