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Verizon Case Offers Glimpse of Vast N.S.A. Surveillance Verizon Case Offers Glimpse of Vast N.S.A. Surveillance
(35 minutes later)
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is secretly carrying out a domestic surveillance program under which it is collecting business communications records involving Americans under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act, according to a highly classified court order disclosed on Wednesday night. WASHINGTON — The United States government has been compiling a huge database of calling logs of Americans’ domestic communications under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act for at least seven years, but counterterrorism officials seek additional permission from a secret national security court before scrutinizing any particular caller, the top lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Thursday.
A senior Obama administration official said on Thursday morning that a court order for the business records of Verizon customers, disclosed by the newspaper The Guardian, “does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls” and “does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber,” but rather “relates exclusively to metadata, such as a telephone number or the length of the call.” Responding to the disclosure on Wednesday night of a highly classified court order to a subsidiary of Verizon Communications seeking all of its customers’ communications logs, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the top Democrat and Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said the order appeared to be a routine reauthorization as part of a broader program that lawmakers have long known about.
The official emphasized that “all three branches of government are involved in reviewing and authorizing” any domestic intelligence collection under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and that any surveillance activities under it are overseen by the Justice Department, the office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the FISA Court “to ensure that they comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties.” “As far as I know, this is exact three-month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years,” Ms. Feinstein said, adding that it was 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.”
“Information of the sort described in the Guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States,” the official said, “as it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”
On Capitol Hill, people familiar with the program said that it was completely lawful and had been going on for years.
“As far as I know, this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It has been briefed to Congress,” she added, and there is no content involved.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told reporters on Thursday that he did not have a problem with the surveillance program because it was imperative in the war on terror.Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told reporters on Thursday that he did not have a problem with the surveillance program because it was imperative in the war on terror.
“If we don’t do it,” Mr. Graham said, “we’re crazy.”“If we don’t do it,” Mr. Graham said, “we’re crazy.”
But some Democrats and Republicans greeted the news with alarm. Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a news conference Thursday that the National Security Agency program helped stop a significant domestic terrorist attack in the United States in the last few years. He did not give more information on the possible nature of the attack.
But some Democrats and Republicans greeted the news of the program with alarm.
Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat, said he and other senators initially learned of the government’s review of phone records in an earlier classified briefing, and although they were concerned by what they had heard, they were limited in what they could publicly criticize.Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat, said he and other senators initially learned of the government’s review of phone records in an earlier classified briefing, and although they were concerned by what they had heard, they were limited in what they could publicly criticize.
“There’s been a concern about this issue for some time,” he told reporters in the Capitol. “That’s why I think sunsetting many of these laws is appropriate because circumstances change in terms of America’s security. And our information and knowledge change in terms of threats to America.”“There’s been a concern about this issue for some time,” he told reporters in the Capitol. “That’s why I think sunsetting many of these laws is appropriate because circumstances change in terms of America’s security. And our information and knowledge change in terms of threats to America.”
The order, signed in April by Judge Roger Vinson of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, directs a Verizon Communications subsidiary, Verizon Business Network Services, to turn over “on an ongoing daily basis” to the National Security Agency all call logs “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.” The comments by the lawmakers provided significant context to the disclosure by the Guardian newspaper on Wednesday of a court order in April to a Verizon subsidiary that provides telecommunications services to corporations. It directed the firm to turn over to the National Security Agency, “on an ongoing daily basis” until July, logs of communications “between the United States and abroad” or “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”
The order does not apply to the content of the communications. It was not clear whether similar orders have gone to other subsidiaries of Verizon or to other telecommunications firms; such orders, issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, gag their recipients from talking about them. But the comments by the lawmakers on Thursday suggested that the order was just one of many that have enabled the National Security Agency to create a vast library of communications logs for data-mining purposes.
Senator Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat who has raised warnings about sweeping federal surveillance, suggested on Thursday that the program represented excessive action by the government. The program appears to warehouse and analyze calling “metadata” — time and number logs showing when communications have been made, but not their content or the name of any subscriber — which the government analyzes to try to identify terrorists. Mr. Chambliss said that under the rules of the program, when a computer program flags a number as suspicious, the authorities return to the national security court for permission to scrutinize that person more closely.
“While I cannot corroborate the details of this particular report, this sort of widescale surveillance should concern all of us and is the kind of government overreach I’ve said Americans would find shocking,” Mr. Udall said. “As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, it’s why I will keep fighting for transparency and appropriate checks on the surveillance of Americans.” “It’s metadata only and it’s what we call minimized,” Mr. Chambliss said. “All of these numbers are basically ferreted out by a computer, but if there’s a number that matches a terrorist number that has been dialed by a U.S. number or dialed from a terrorist to a U.S. number, then that may be flagged. And they may or may not seek a court order to go further on that particular instance. But that’s the only time that this information is ever used in any kind of substantive way.”
United States Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on Thursday that members of Congress were fully briefed on the intelligence-gathering program that included the daily collection of telephone records from Verizon Communications. As the scope of the government’s collection of logs of Americans’ domestic communications started to come into greater focus on Thursday, privacy groups erupted. Anthony Romero of the American Civil Liberties Union said that group — a client of Verizon’s business unit — was considering filing a lawsuit to challenge the “dragnet” surveillance, and said liberals would be furious had such a program been disclosed under a Republican administration.
Verizon Business Network Services is one of the nation’s largest telecommunications and Internet providers for corporations. It was not clear whether similar orders have gone to other parts of Verizon, like its residential or cellphone services, or to other telecommunications carriers. The order prohibits its recipient from discussing its existence, and representatives of both Verizon and AT&T declined to comment Wednesday evening. “A pox on all the three houses of government,” he said. “On Congress, for legislating such powers, on the FISA court for being such a paper tiger and rubber stamp, and on the Obama administration for not being true to its values.”
The four-page order was disclosed Wednesday evening. Obama administration officials at the F.B.I. and the White House also declined to comment on it Wednesday evening, but did not deny the report, and a person familiar with the order confirmed its authenticity. “We will respond as soon as we can,” Marci Green Miller, a National Security Agency spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. But a senior Obama administration official asserted that its surveillance activities “comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties.”
The order was sought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under a section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that regulates domestic surveillance for national security purposes, including “tangible things” like a business’s customer records. The provision was expanded by Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which Congress enacted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The official also described the program as “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, as it allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”
The order was marked “TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN,” referring to communications-related intelligence information that may not be released to noncitizens. That would make it among the most closely held secrets in the federal government, and its disclosure comes amid a furor over the Obama administration’s aggressive tactics in its investigations of leaks. Following the comments by Ms. Feinstein and Mr. Chambliss, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, issued a statement confirming that the program was the one he and Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, have been cryptically warning about for years each time the Patriot Act has come up for renewal; he said he hoped the disclosure would “force a real debate” about whether such “sweeping, dragnet surveillance” should be permitted or is necessary.
The collection of call logs is set to expire in July unless the court extends it. “I believe that when law-abiding Americans call their friends, who they call, when they call, and where they call from is private information,” he said. “Collecting this data about every single phone call that every American makes every day would be a massive invasion of Americans’ privacy.”
The collection of communications logs — or calling “metadata” — is believed to be a major component of the Bush administration’s program of surveillance that took place without court orders. The newly disclosed order raised the question of whether the government continued that type of information collection by bringing it under the Patriot Act.
The disclosure late Wednesday seemed likely to inspire further controversy over the scope of government surveillance. Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties advocacy group, said that “absent some explanation I haven’t thought of, this looks like the largest assault on privacy since the N.S.A. wiretapped Americans in clear violation of the law” under the Bush administration. “On what possible basis has the government refused to tell us that it believes that the law authorizes this kind of request?” she said.
For several years, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Senator Udall, have been cryptically warning that the government was interpreting its surveillance powers under that section of the Patriot Act in a way that would be alarming to the public if it knew about it.
“We believe most Americans would be stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted Section 215 of the Patriot Act,” they wrote last year in a letter to Mr. Holder.
They added: “As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows. This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”
A spokesman for Senator Wyden did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the Verizon order.
The senators were angry because the Obama administration described Section 215 orders as being similar to a grand jury subpoena for obtaining business records, like a suspect’s hotel or credit card records, in the course of an ordinary criminal investigation. The senators said the secret interpretation of the law was nothing like that.
Section 215 of the Patriot Act made it easier to get an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain business records so long as they were merely deemed “relevant” to a national-security investigation.
The Justice Department has denied being misleading about the Patriot Act. Department officials have acknowledged since 2009 that a secret, sensitive intelligence program is based on the law and have insisted that their statements about the matter have been accurate.
The New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in 2011 for a report describing the government’s interpretation of its surveillance powers under the Patriot Act. But the Obama administration withheld the report, and a judge dismissed the case.