FISC Restarts NSA Bulk Telephony Collection; Transfer to Phone Companies To Be Completed in 180 Days

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued an opinion and primary order renewing NSA's Section 215 bulk telephony program to ensure an orderly transition to the surveillance program authorized by the USA Freedom Act to the phone providers themselves, said the Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a joint statement Tuesday. Per Monday's order, NSA’s bulk program will continue for a 180-day transition period to the phone companies, said DOJ and the DNI. “The court’s new primary order requires that during the transition period, absent a true emergency, telephony metadata can only be queried after a judicial finding that there is a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the selection term is associated with an approved international terrorist organization." Query results are limited to data within two hops of the selection term instead of three, it said. The administration is “undertaking a declassification review of this most recent primary order, and when complete, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will post the document to its website,” it said.