US plans reports on secret court orders to telecom providers

The US intelligence community haspledged to disclose more data about government surveillance programs byreporting annually how many secret court orders are issued totelecommunications companies under certain legal rules.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Thursday announced a plan torelease the total number of legal orders issued every 12 months to telecomcompanies by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and the numberof targets affected by those orders.

The court orders, under authority granted by the Foreign IntelligenceSurveillance Act and National Security letters, allow collection of informationabout subscribers and call records, both for past communications and ongoingwiretaps. But only the aggregate annual numbers of these court orders will bemade public.

The move is part of President Barack Obama's response to criticism about a lackof transparency in government surveillance programs following leaks by formerspy agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Earlier this month, the government for the first time released opinions,previously labeled Top Secret, from the FISA Court. In the past its decisionsinvolving electronic surveillance and communications collection by the NationalSecurity Agency had not been made public.

Privacy advocates have been urging the government to start shedding light onthe FISA court and its surveillance operations and offered a tempered welcometo Thursday's news.

"This is a good start as it pulls back the covers a bit on the governmentauthorities, but we still need more information," said Marc Rotenberg,president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center advocacy group. It urgedfurther disclosures about the cost and effectiveness of the surveillance.

Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney at the data privacy group ElectronicFrontier Foundation, expressed concerns that the pledge to release the numberof affected investigation targets could severely limit the amount of data to beactually released.

"The number of targets affected isn't as much the issue on the public'smind as the number of innocent people affected," he said, pointing to theleaked secret FISC order to Verizon Communications Inc that did notaddress any targets.

Obama and other US officials have said the NSA surveillance programs arelawful, have been approved by Congress and the FISA Court, and are aimed atdetecting and disrupting terrorist plots.

"FISA and national security letters are an important part of our effort tokeep the nation and its citizens safe, and disclosing more detailed informationabout how they are used and to whom they are directed can obviously help ourenemies avoid detection," Clapper said in a statement announcing the newplan on Thursday.

The FISA court has said the NSA may unintentionally have collected as many as56,000 emails of Americans a year from 2008 to 2011 and may have violated theConstitution before adjustments were made.