(Reuters) - The Obama administration on Thursday defended its collection of a massive amount of telephone records from at least one carrier as part of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, re-igniting a debate over privacy even as it called the practice critical to protecting Americans from attacks.
The admission came after Britain's Guardian newspaper published on Wednesday a secret court order related to the records of millions of Verizon Communications customers. The surveillance appears to have involved the phone records of millions of Americans.
Privacy advocates blasted the order as unconstitutional government surveillance and called for a review.
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not specifically confirm the report, but noted the published court order pertains only to data such as a telephone number or the length of a call, and not the subscribers' identities or the content of the telephone calls.
The order requires the government to turn over to the National Security Agency so-called "metadata" such as a list of numbers that called other U.S. or international numbers as well as other transactional information on the time and location of calls. The NSA is the main U.S. intelligence-gathering agency tasked with monitoring electronic communications.
"Information of the sort described in the Guardian article has been a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats to the United States, 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," the senior administration official said.
The revelation renewed concerns about the intelligence-gathering effort - criticized by human rights and privacy advocates - launched in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and raised questions about its oversight.
It also drew fresh attention to President Barack Obama's handling of privacy and free speech issues. His administration already is under fire for searching Associated Press journalists' calling records and the emails of a Fox News Channel reporter as part of its inquiries into leaked government information.
Verizon has declined to comment. It remains unclear whether the practice extends to other carriers, though several security experts and at least one U.S. lawmaker said that was likely.
AT&T Inc declined to comment. Representatives for other major carriers, including Sprint Nextel Corp and T-Mobile, could not be immediately reached or had no immediate comment.
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The three-month court order, dated April 25, directs Verizon's Business Network Services Inc and Verizon Business Services units to hand over daily electronic data until July 19.
rest http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/06/us-usa-wiretaps-verizon-idUSBRE95502920130606?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews
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