ODNI Releases FISCR Opinion Confirming Legality of Surveillance Related to Phone Numbers
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a 38-page Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review opinion from April that confirms that some government surveillance involving collection of phone numbers is legal. The opinion from the court (which often…
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rules in secret) “confirms the legality of the government’s continued collection of post-cut-through digits (PCTD) using a pen register and trap and trace (PRTT) device, authorized pursuant to Title IV of FISA [the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act],” the ODNI said in a Monday blog post. “Title IV authorizes the government to use a PRTT device to seek and capture dialing, routing, addressing or signaling (DRAS) information. Title IV does not authorize the use of a PRTT device to seek the contents of a communication.” ODNI said it released the opinion in conjunction with DOJ. The FISA court of review “concluded that FISA authorizes and the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit collection of all PCTD obtained with a PRTT device to acquire non-content DRAS information, so long as the government is prohibited from using any incidentally collected content,” the blog post said.