Today, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declassified and announced that the FISC has approved the government’s application to renew the telephony metadata program. In a press release that gave a nod to the potential for reform of the program (the entirety of which is available after the jump), the DNI said:

“[t]he Intelligence Community continues to be open to modifications to this program that would provide additional privacy and civil liberty protections while still maintaining its operational benefits. To that end, the Administration is carefully evaluating the recommendation of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies regarding transitioning the program to one in which the data is held by telecommunications companies or a third party. In addition, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board will complete a report on this program in the near future. The Administration will review all of these recommendations and consult with Congress and the Intelligence Community to determine if there are ways to achieve our counterterrorism mission in a manner that gives the American people greater confidence.”

[UPDATED 01/05/2014]: The FISC’s approval of the application to renew the telephony metadata program comes on the heels of an order by the FISC last month to allow the Center for National Security Studies (CNSS) to submit an amicus curiae brief on why Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act “does not authorize the collection of telephony metadata in bulk.”Despite the recent order, it is our understanding that no amicus briefs were filed before the court on this renewal application. [Our earlier coverage of the CNSS filings in the Section 215 proceedings before the FISC is available here.]

The press release notes that the order itself is still under declassification review and, therefore, not yet publicly available.

Notably, the FISC’s approval of the government’s application is the first since the conflicting district court opinions in the D.D.C. and the S.D.N.Y on the legality of the program, Klayman v. Obama and ACLU v. Clapper, respectively.

And in perhaps unsurprising–but related–news, notices of appeal have now been filed in both of these cases. Today the government filed a notice of appeal in Klayman. This comes on the heels of yesterday’s announcement from the ACLU that it had filed a notice of appeal in Clapper.

Here is the press release in full: