US releases more documents on NSA surveillance origins

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Saturday declassified more documents that show how the National Security Agency (NSA) was first authorized to start collecting bulk phone and Internet records in the hunt for Al-Qaeda members.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper explained in a statement that President George W. Bush first authorized the spying in October 2001, as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program, just after the Sept. 11 attacks. Bush disclosed the program in 2005.

The program had to be extended every 30 to 60 days by presidential order and was eventually replaced by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) — a law that requires a secret court to authorize the bulk collection.

The disclosures are seen as part of the White House's campaign to justify the NSA's controversial activities, following leaks to the media about classified surveillance programs by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. 

President Barack Obama hinted Friday that he would consider some changes to the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records to address public concern about privacy. That same week, a federal judge declared that the NSA's collection program is almost certainly unconstitutional, and said there was little evidence to prove it had thwarted any terror plot.

Also that week, a presidential advisory panel suggested 46 changes to the agency's operations. Those recommendations included forcing the NSA to obtain permission from the FISA court before searching phone-records, and instead of storing phone data, keeping it with telephone companies or a private third party.

Other recommendations included making surveillance of foreign leaders subject to high-level scrutiny by the president and senior national security officials before any approval is given, and creating an advocate for the public interest that would represent civil liberties before the FISA court.

Obama said he would consider the recommendations and announce his decisions in January.

Among the documents declassified Saturday were legal arguments by former national intelligence directors — including Dennis Blair's reasons to keep NSA spying methods secret, in an ongoing case filed in 2006 as Shubert v. Bush and now known as Shubert v. Obama.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, called the case "a class action on behalf of all Americans against the government, alleging a massive, indiscriminate, illegal National Security Agency (NSA) dragnet of the phone calls and email of tens of millions of ordinary Americans."

Blair countered in 2009 that revealing information sought by the plaintiffs — including how information was collected and whether specific individuals were being spied on, and what the programs had revealed about Al-Qaeda — could damage the hunt for members of the organization.

"To do so would obviously disclose to our adversaries that we know of their plans and how we may be obtaining information," Blair said. Much of his 27-page response is redacted. 

"We welcome the declassification of what the public has known for some time, which is that the Bush administration engaged in the bulk collection of extraordinarily sensitive information about millions of innocent Americans for years without any court review," said Alex Abdo, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The government should have made its case to the public...years ago, so that our ordinary judicial and political processes could decide whether the programs are lawful and, if so, whether they are acceptable in our democracy."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation did not respond immediately to a request for comment from The Associated Press.