MOSCOW, January 4 (RAPSI, Ingrid Burke) - The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) reauthorized on Friday the collection in bulk by the US government of “telephony metadata.”

The Office of US Director of National Intelligence [DNI] released a statement Friday explaining that DNI James Clapper: “has decided to declassify and disclose publicly that the government filed an application with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking renewal of the authority to collect telephony metadata in bulk, and that the court renewed that authority on January 3, 2014.” The Office of the DNI mentioned that the FISC order is presently under review for declassification.

In early June, The Guardian reported on the first of a number of leaks for which whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, would ultimately claim responsibility.

This first story featured a leaked order by the FISC ordering Verizon Business Network Services to provide the NSA on “an ongoing daily basis… all call detail records or ‘telephony metadata’ created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”

The heavy-on-the-tongue, but recently ubiquitous term “telephony metadata” refers to “comprehensive communications routing information, including but not limited to session identifying information…, trunk identifier, telephone calling card numbers, and time and duration of call,” according to the leaked FISC order. Notably, the following items fall outside of the term’s scope: “the substantive content of any communications…, or the name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer.”

The story dominated headlines around the globe and fostered countless dialogues regarding the propriety and necessity of such seemingly invasive intelligence-gathering methods.

In a landmark legal case on the matter, a US federal court issued an injunction in December barring the US government from collecting the plaintiffs' data “as part of the NSA’s Bulk Telephony Metadata, any telephony metadata associated with their personal Verizon accounts.”

Although due to national security concerns the injunction has been stayed pending appeal, presiding Federal Judge Richard Leon of the US District Court in Washington DC stated: “I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary invasion’ than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” adding that James Madison – viewed widely as the "Father of the US Constitution" – would be “aghast.”

Citing strength in numbers, the DNI statement on Friday attested to the contrary that the program is lawful: “It is the administration's view, consistent with the recent holdings of the United States District Courts for the Southern District of New York and Southern District of California, as well as the findings of 15 judges of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on 36 separate occasions over the past seven years, that the telephony metadata collection program is lawful.”

The statement then noted that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has appealed the “lone contrary decision” handed down by the DC District Court.

The DNI statement notes despite its assertions of lawfulness that the US Intelligence Community is in the process of exploring new options that might more comfortably balance the US government’s interests in the operational benefits offered by the present programs with the interests of the general public in privacy and civil liberties.

One option under consideration would involve an evolution in the program, “to one in which the data is held by telecommunications companies or a third party,” according to the statement.