TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The secretive US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court renewed the authority of US intelligence agencies to collect data on millions of Americans' telephone calls in a program that has set off a legal battle over privacy rights.



The court allowed on Friday the intelligence community to collect metadata from phone companies, the Office of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a news release.

The release offered almost no details about the ruling, but a US official said the authority was renewed for three months, and that it applied to the entire metadata collection program.

In the past, these orders were sometimes issued to individual telephone companies. But the official said the latest order covered all companies from which metadata had been collected under recent previous court authorizations, Reuters reported.

News the National Security Agency can track the telephone calls of Americans by collecting metadata of who they contact and when, was one of the main revelations by former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden last year that set off public outcry about government spying.

Two US district judges recently issued conflicting rulings on the legality and constitutionality of bulk metadata collection by the NSA.

By Tasnim News Agency�

 

The Iran Project is not responsible for the content of quoted articles.