U.S. Government Telephony Metadata Program
Legal Basis for the Collection of Domestic Phone Records
T his white paper explains the government’s legal basis for an intelligence collection program under which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obtains court orders directing certain telecommunications service providers to produce telephony metadata in bulk. The bulk metadata is stored, queried, and analyzed by the National Security Agency (NSA) for counterterrorism purposes. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (“the FISC” or “the Court”) authorizes this program under the “business records” provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), enacted as Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. The Court first authorized the program in 2006, and it has since been…
