NSA admits it lets the FBI access its warrantless spying database

The House of Representatives voted to bar the Obama Administration from engaging in a controversial surveillance practice that insiders call a "backdoor search."

A letter from the Obama Administration gives some hints about how common the practice is. The letter, addressed to Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR), admits that the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation all conducted backdoor searches in 2013. At least 198 searches -- and possibly many more -- were seeking the contents of Americans' private communications. Here's how often government agencies engaged in the controversial practice in 2013:

• The NSA brass approved searches for the contents of the communications of 198 Americans. Such content searches could include the audio of phone calls or the body of e-mails.
• The NSA conducted approximately 9,500 searches for Americans' metadata -- information such as phone numbers dialed, email recipients, and the length of calls.
• The CIA conducted "fewer than 1,900 queries" for information about Americans, of which 27 percent were duplicate searches for the same American.
• The letter says the FBI doesn't keep track of how many queries it has performed, but "the FBI believes the number of queries is substantial." On the other hand, the FBI "only requests and receives a small percentage" of the NSA's collection of data acquired under the FISA Amendments Act.