Feds plot course to resume NSA spying

The National Security Agency is taking steps to turn its massive collection of Americans’ phone records back on. After President Barack Obama signed legislation to end the controversial program, the Justice Department submitted a legal memorandum to the secretive federal court justifying authorization for the NSA collection for another six months, as the new law allows. “[T]he government respectfully submits that it may seek and this court may issue an order for the bulk production of tangible things” under the law, “as it did in ... prior related dockets,” the Justice Department said. The legal analysis was submitted on June 2, less than an hour after the White House announced that President Obama had signed the USA Freedom Act into law. The memo was not revealed to the public until June 8. The memo outlines the legal rationale for restarting the NSA program.