US can keep court orders, phone cos secret in NSA spy case

The US government need not turn over a secret surveillance court's orders or the names of phone companies helping it collect call records, because it might reveal methods needed to protect national security, a federal judge decided.

US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California, rejected the Electronic Frontier Foundation's argument that the US Department of Justice should turn over the materials, in the wake of unauthorized disclosures in 2013 by a former National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden.