Court: NSA Spying May Continue Even If Congress Lets Authority Expire

The National Security Agency may be allowed to continue scooping up American phone records indefinitely even if congressional authority for the spying program expires later in 2015, according to a recently declassified court order. The legal underpinning of the NSA's bulk collection of US call data resides in a provision of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act that is scheduled to sunset on June 1. The common understanding among lawmakers and the intelligence community is that the surveillance program will halt unless Congress reauthorizes Section 215 of the Patriot Act in some fashion.

But a passage buried on the last pages of a declassified order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court leaves open the door for the program -- exposed publicly by Edward Snowden nearly two years ago -- to continue even if lawmakers let Section 215 lapse. "If Congress, conversely, has not enacted legislation amending [Section 215] or extending its sunset date," writes Judge James Boasberg, "the government is directed to provide a legal memorandum … addressing the power of the Court to grant such authority beyond June 1, 2015."