Secret FISA Court Extends NSA Phone Spying

The secretive U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has approved a request made by the National Security Agency (NSA) to continue its dragnet collection of records on all U.S. phone calls.

In what it claimed to be move for transparency, the office of the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made the announcement late Friday.

Clapper “has decided to declassify and disclose publicly that the government filed an application with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking renewal of the authority to collect telephony metadata in bulk, and that the court renewed that authority,” the office’s statement read.

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This disclosure is “consistent with his prior declassification decision and in light of the significant and continuing public interest in the telephony metadata collection program,” it continued.

However, as Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)—who is among a handful of U.S. lawmakers currently drafting respective bills that claim to prohibit the NSA from conducting bulk data collection in the future—made clear that Clapper’s nod towards “transparency” was superficial at face value.