White House Says Telephone Data Collection Program Remains Vital to National Security

A Verizon spokesman declined to comment Thursday. But Randy Milch, general counsel, sent company employees an email addressing the leaked document. “We have no comment on the accuracy of The Guardian newspaper story or the documents referenced, but a few items in these stories are important,” Milch wrote. “The alleged court order that The Guardian published on its website contains language that: compels Verizon to respond; forbids Verizon from revealing the order’s existence; and excludes from production the ‘content of any communication ... or the name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer.'” Verizon “takes steps to safeguard its customers’ privacy,” he said. “Nevertheless, the law authorizes the federal courts to order a company to provide information in certain circumstances, and if Verizon were to receive such an order, we would be required to comply."

"I think this has been going on for a long time, this is just the first time we've had publicly available concrete evidence of it,” Jennifer Lynch, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told us Thursday. “Several senators ... have tried to bring this issue before the public but haven’t been able to, given that all FISA court orders are secret. We suspected it was going on, which is why we sued AT&T and then the federal government in two cases a few years ago on this very issue.” EFF has brought two cases, Jewel v. NSA and Hepting v. AT&T, targeting the data demands made on carriers by the government.

The government’s use of metadata like phone records “is a useful way to identify networks of individuals,” said Daniel Castro, senior analyst at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation. “This is especially important since many previous communication channels are going dark,” he said. “From a privacy perspective this is also better than listening in on phone calls. ... But it’s also clear that most Americans didn’t know this was happening. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with collecting and using this type of data on a large scale, but there doesn’t seem to be a good reason to do it in secret."

The White House defended the surveillance program in a statement by spokesman Josh Earnest. “The order ... does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls,” he said. “The information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to call details, such as a telephone number or the length of a telephone call. The information of the sort described in the [Guardian] article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terror threats 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.” But Earnest also said the White House “welcomes a discussion of the tradeoffs between security and civil liberties."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said members of Congress have been fully briefed on the government’s phone tapping program. “The alleged FISA Court order contained in the Guardian article does not give the government authority to listen in on anyone’s telephone call, nor does it provide the government with the content of any communication or the name of any subscriber,” they said in a joint statement (http://1.usa.gov/187EKiu). “As with other FISA authorities, all information the government may receive under such an order would be subject to strict limitations."

But Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., long a critic of the government surveillance program, said it’s time for the nation to hold a “real debate” on the topic. “I am barred by Senate rules from commenting on some of the details at this time,” he said (http://1.usa.gov/14jE2dU). “However, I believe that when law-abiding Americans call their friends, who they call, when they call, and where they call from is private information. Collecting this data about every single phone call that every American makes every day would be a massive invasion of Americans’ privacy."

"The House Judiciary Committee takes this kind of action very seriously and so we will be looking into the details of this case very closely,” said its chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. “I am very concerned that the Department of Justice may have abused the intent of the law and we will investigate that and whether the law needs to be changed as a result. Furthermore, we will raise this issue with FBI Director [Robert] Mueller when he appears next week before the House Judiciary Committee for an oversight hearing.”

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., former Judiciary chairman, also expressed concerns. “As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the FBI’s interpretation of this legislation,” he said. “While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses. The Bureau’s broad application for phone records was made under the so-called business records provision of the Act. I do not believe the broadly drafted FISA order is consistent with the requirements of the Patriot Act."

Public interest group officials see the latest development as providing insight into a government program than has been under way since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the George W. Bush administration, they said in interviews. “We don’t know exactly what is going on here, but what we do know gives good cause for worry,” said public interest lawyer Andrew Schwartzman. “On Thursday, we learned that this is not a one-off thing, but an ongoing program of systematic surveillance which has been underway for some time. The metadata being collected under this order can be combined with other information to identify particular persons and groups, which is exactly what the Fourth Amendment is supposed to prohibit. Although it appears that Verizon had no way to contest this directive, I am especially concerned about the failure of the carriers to defend their customers’ data against broad government surveillance. Unlike companies like Google, Twitter and Microsoft, AT&T and Verizon have a track record of accommodating the government’s overbroad requests."

"This is stunning,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “It appears that millions of Americans are being put under surveillance so their communications with others can be tracked in near real time. This may be the broadest investigative program in U.S. history.” Free Press President Craig Aaron also sharply criticized the surveillance program. “Tracking phone calls made by hundreds of millions of innocent Americans is spying, pure and simple,” he said. “This program is the latest in a series of shocking disclosures about the Obama administration’s willingness to trample basic civil liberties and track our every movement.”