US 'orders Verizon to disclose millions of phone records'

The court order was described by one civil rights group as "beyond Orwellian"

The US National Security Agency (NSA) is collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans, according to the Guardian newspaper.

The newspaper published what it said was a secret court order directing the Verizon company to hand over data on its customers on an "ongoing" basis.
Civil liberties groups said the details of the report were "stunning".
The White House broadly defended the practice as a "critical" security tool but did not confirm the report.
US authorities need the information to protect the nation from terrorist threats, a senior Obama administration official told the BBC.
The official said such records allowed counterterrorism officials "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 US".
The security agencies and Verizon have not commented.
The US Center for Constitutional Rights said it appeared to be "the broadest surveillance order to ever have been issued".
Gagging clause The document published by the Guardian was signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on 25 April and lasts until 19 July.
It falls under a section of the Bush-era Patriot Act which allows access to business records for "foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations" - it was unclear whether it was a one-off order or a renewal of an existing request.
The order requires Verizon - one of the largest phone companies in the US - to disclose to the NSA the metadata of all calls it processes, both domestic and international.
Such metadata includes telephone numbers, calling card numbers, the serial numbers of phones used and the time and duration of calls. It does not include the content of a call or the callers' addresses or financial information.

The court order

Verizon is required to hand over data "on an ongoing, daily basis" until 19 July
Covers all local and domestic US phone calls, and calls from the US abroad, but not calls made wholly in foreign countries
Metadata to be provided includes telephone numbers, handset identifying numbers, calling cards used and the time and duration of calls
Prohibits disclosure of the order's existence

The senior Obama administration official emphasised to the BBC that "on its face" the court order printed by the Guardian did not authorise US government agents to listen in on Americans' telephone conversations.

The order also contains a gagging order, requiring that "no person shall disclose to any other person that the FBI or NSA has sought or obtained tangible things under this Order".
The document "shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk - regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing," said the Guardian report's writer, Glenn Greenwald.
The paper said the NSA, the White House and the Department of Justice had all declined to comment. A spokesman for Verizon, Ed McFadden, said the company had no comment.
The US government has previously said obtaining metadata does not require a warrant because it does not constitute personal information.
But rights groups have fiercely criticised the order, with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) describing it as "beyond Orwellian".
"It provides further evidence of the extent to which basic democratic rights are being surrendered in secret to the demands of unaccountable intelligence agencies," said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU's deputy legal director.
Former Vice-President Al Gore said in a tweet: "In digital era, privacy must be a priority. Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?"
'Stunned' Two Democrat senators have been pressing the Obama administration to clarify the scope of its public surveillance.
Last year, Mark Udall and Ron Wyden wrote to US Attorney General Eric Holder saying they believed "most Americans would be stunned" by the government's "secret legal interpretations" of the Patriot Act.
The White House came under heavy criticism last month after papers were leaked showing it had gathered the phone records of journalists at the Associated Press.
The story prompted both questions from both Republicans and Democrats in Washington about how the White House was balancing the need for national security with privacy rights.
The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media, bringing more cases against people suspected of leaking such material than any previous administration, correspondents say.

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Thursday, June 6, 2013