Obama defends secretly collecting US phone data

The White House has defended the government’s decision to collect the telephone records of millions of Americans, calling such information “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats”.

The Guardian newspaper revealed that the United States has been collecting the telephone records under a top secret court order.

The order was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and is good until July 19, the newspaper reported.

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The order requires Verizon, one of America’s largest telecommunications companies, on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the National Security Agency information on all telephone calls, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The newspaper said the document, a copy of which it had obtained, shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens were being collected indiscriminately and in bulk, regardless of whether they were suspected of any wrongdoing.

It has not been possible to authenticate the order because documents from the court are classified.

Verizon spokesman Ed McFadden said the company had no comment. The NSA had no immediate comment.

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Verizon Communications listed 121 million customers in its first-quarter earnings report this April – 98.9 million wireless customers, 11.7 million residential phone lines and about 10 million commercial lines.

Under the terms of the order, the phone numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as are location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The broad, unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is unusual. FISA court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target suspected of being an agent or terrorist.

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