Surveillance orders declined in 2013

Amid a major public and press furor over National Security Agency surveillance, federal surveillance orders and demands for national-security related information declined slightly in 2013, according to statistics made public by the Justice Department.

The Obama Administration said it filed 1,655 applications with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2013, down from 1,856 the previous year. The court maintained its controversial record of virtually never rejecting a government surveillance request, doing so zero times in 2013. The last rejection of such an application was in 2009. The court did modify 34 applications for surveillance and/or physical searches, the Justice Department said in a letter sent to leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees.

The government made 178 applications last year for business records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act -- the mechanism used to authorize the NSA's now-famous telephone metadata program. That's down from 212 such applications in 2012.

All requests for 215 orders made in 2013 were granted, but judges made changes to the vast majority of those -- with 141 modifications reported by the Justice Department. The FBI's issuance of National Security Letters -- administrative subpoenas for certain types of information from telephone companies, Internet firms and other utilities -- also ratcheted back a bit in that year. There were 14,219 requests in 2013 covering 5,334 Americans or legal residents, DOJ said. That's down from 15,299 NSL's in 2012, covering 6,223 individuals.