Trove of documents released by the Obama administration appears to contain 2004 opinion authorizing the agency's massive data collection program. November 18, 2013 11:23 PM PST (Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET) The Obama administration released a trove of newly declassified documents related to the National Security Agency's surveillance activities on Monday, including what appears to be the original secret court ruling authorizing the massive data collection program. The ruling by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was among hundreds of documents released by released by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. The documents also reveal the NSA's violations of court-ordered limits of the program. The 87-page opinion, signed by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, then the chief judge on the secret surveillance court, authorized the NSA to collect of e-mail metadata and other Internet communications. However, the section describing the metadata to be collected was blacked out. "The raw volume of the proposed collection is enormous," Kollar-Kotelly wrote in the heavily redacted opinion, which blacked out a section that presumably went into greater detail about the size. While the date of her signature is blacked out, the opinion appears to be the July 2004 order that granted data-collection authority to the NSA and placed the program under the court's supervision, according to documents leaked earlier this year by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The metadata -- including the e-mail addresses and identities of the sender and recipient, but not the messages' contents -- was to be used in the government's counter-terrorism programs. Related stories Yahoo plays catchup in the encryption arms race NSA foe Greenwald whips his new media venture into shape Battle brews as tech companies attempt to fend off NSA hacking "Analysts know that terrorists' e-mails are located somewhere in the billions of data bits; what they cannot know ahead of time is exactly where," the judge wrote. The metadata collection program, which was authorized President George W. Bush in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, was discontinued in 2011 for what the Obama administration called "operational and resource reasons." The documents also show that the NSA had trouble keeping its data collection within the court-mandated limits. Although redactions made it difficult to identify specific issues, a statement released with the documents Monday indicated that "longstanding compliance issues" were identified in 2009, leading the agency to recognize that its "compliance and oversight structure had not kept pace with its operational momentum." Clapper said in a statement that the document release was the result of an Obama order in June that directed him to "make public as much information as possible about certain sensitive programs while being mindful of the need to protect sensitive classified intelligence activities and national security." "Release of these documents reflects the executive branch's continued commitment to making information about this intelligence collection program publicly available when appropriate and consistent with the national security of the United States," he wrote.
Trove of documents released by the Obama administration appears to contain 2004 opinion authorizing the agency's massive data collection program.
The Obama administration released a trove of newly declassified documents related to the National Security Agency's surveillance activities on Monday, including what appears to be the original secret court ruling authorizing the massive data collection program.
The ruling by the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was among hundreds of documents released by released by James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. The documents also reveal the NSA's violations of court-ordered limits of the program.
The 87-page opinion, signed by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, then the chief judge on the secret surveillance court, authorized the NSA to collect of e-mail metadata and other Internet communications. However, the section describing the metadata to be collected was blacked out.
"The raw volume of the proposed collection is enormous," Kollar-Kotelly wrote in the heavily redacted opinion, which blacked out a section that presumably went into greater detail about the size. While the date of her signature is blacked out, the opinion appears to be the July 2004 order that granted data-collection authority to the NSA and placed the program under the court's supervision, according to documents leaked earlier this year by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The metadata -- including the e-mail addresses and identities of the sender and recipient, but not the messages' contents -- was to be used in the government's counter-terrorism programs.
Related stories
- Yahoo plays catchup in the encryption arms race
- NSA foe Greenwald whips his new media venture into shape
- Battle brews as tech companies attempt to fend off NSA hacking
"Analysts know that terrorists' e-mails are located somewhere in the billions of data bits; what they cannot know ahead of time is exactly where," the judge wrote. The metadata collection program, which was authorized President George W. Bush in the wake of the September 2001 terrorist attacks, was discontinued in 2011 for what the Obama administration called "operational and resource reasons."
The documents also show that the NSA had trouble keeping its data collection within the court-mandated limits. Although redactions made it difficult to identify specific issues, a statement released with the documents Monday indicated that "longstanding compliance issues" were identified in 2009, leading the agency to recognize that its "compliance and oversight structure had not kept pace with its operational momentum."
Clapper said in a statement that the document release was the result of an Obama order in June that directed him to "make public as much information as possible about certain sensitive programs while being mindful of the need to protect sensitive classified intelligence activities and national security."
"Release of these documents reflects the executive branch's continued commitment to making information about this intelligence collection program publicly available when appropriate and consistent with the national security of the United States," he wrote.
