Secret court approves NSA bulk collection one last time: 'Plus ça change …'

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jun/30/fisa-secret-court-final-nsa-approval

Fisa court judge issues final authorisation to programme banned after Congress banned bulk collection of telephone data in the USA Freedom Act

Secret court approves NSA bulk collection one last time: 'Plus ça change …'
Dan Roberts in Washington
Tuesday 30 June 2015 17.32 EDT

After a decade in the shadows, a secretive surveillance court that authorises the bulk collection of American telephone records seized on its last chance to show off a little personality on Tuesday.

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, well, at least for 180 days,” wrote judge Michael Mosman in an unusually colourful, and public, ruling that granted an extension to the programme one last time.

Congress banned the bulk collection of telephone metadata – first revealed by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in the Guardian in 2013 – by passing sweeping NSA reforms in the USA Freedom Act earlier this month.

But the legislation also proposed a six-month transition period while the NSA moves to a new system that relies on asking telephone companies for specific records rather than maintaining a central government database.