Documents Show N.S.A.’s Moves on Surveillance Before Congress’s Approval
WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled in 2007 that the U.S.A. Patriot Act empowered the National Security Agency to collect foreigners’ emails and phone calls from domestic networks without prior judicial approval, newly declassified documents show.
The documents — two rulings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — fill in a chapter in the history of the N.S.A.’s warrantless surveillance program. They show the agency’s secret moves in the months before Congress authorized the spying by enacting the Protect America Act in August 2007.
The disclosure also brought into public view a previously unknown example of how the surveillance court, which hears arguments only from the government before issuing secret rulings, sometimes accepts novel interpretations of the law to bless government requests for spying powers.
The orders were dated May 31, 2007, and Aug. 2, 2007. Both were issued by Judge Roger Vinson, a federal judge from the Northern District of Florida who was then serving on the surveillance court. The Obama administration declassified them and provided them to The New York Times on Monday as part of a continuing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/us/documents-show-nsas-wiretap-moves-before-congresss-approval.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
