In potential conflict with US court, California court wants NSA phone records kept

A court in California has prohibited the destruction of phone records collected by the government until further orders, raising a potential conflict with an order by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington (DC).

Judge Jeffrey White of the US District Court for the Northern District of California ordered the retention of the call details in two lawsuits that have challenged the US National Security Agency's program for the collection of telephone metadata. A number of lawsuits challenging the NSA program have been filed by privacy and other groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. Reggie Walton, presiding judge of the FISC, denied a motion from the Department of Justice that the current five-year limit for holding phone metadata should be extended indefinitely, as it could be required as evidence in the civil lawsuits challenging the program. An extension of the time limit would further infringe on the privacy interests of US persons whose phone records were acquired in large numbers and retained by the government for five years to assist in national security investigation, Judge Walton wrote in his order.

"The great majority of these individuals have never been the subject of investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities," he wrote. In his temporary restraining order, Judge White has, however, prohibited the destruction of any "potential evidence relevant to the claims at issue" in the lawsuits, including the destruction of any telephone metadata or "call detail" records, pending a further order of the court. [March 11]