Government Defends Snooping Program

Government Defends Snooping Program

The administration responded Thursday to a report byThe Guardian revealing the National Security Agency is currently collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers in the U.S. under a top secret court order issued in April.

The statement from a senior administration official:

The article discusses what purports to be an order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court under a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that authorizes the production of business records. Orders of the FISA Court are classified. On its face, the order reprinted in the article does not allow the Government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls. The information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to metadata, such as a telephone number or the length of a call.