Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images file
U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies before the House Select Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, in this April 11, 2013 file photo.
By Andrew Rafferty, Michael Isikoff, Jim Miklaszewski, and Courtney Kube, NBC News
The director of National Intelligence on Wednesday declassified documents relating to the government?s collection of telephone data, one of the wide-ranging surveillance programs that brought global outcry over privacy concerns after being thrust into the public spotlight by self-proclaimed leaker Edward Snowden.?
The documents, which in some places are heavily redacted, were released ?in the interest of increased transparency,??the office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement.?
The move came as NSA officials returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, this time to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the sweeping NSA snooping programs and Snowden's actions.
Deputy Director John Inglis?told the committee that no one has been disciplined over the former security contractor's leak and his ability to take large amounts of classified data from agency computers.? ?
"No one has offered to resign. Everyone is working hard to understand what happened,'' Inglis said.
The three newly released documents include the 2009 and 2011 reports on the government?s ?Bulk Collection Program? under the PATRIOT Act. The other?record made public?was an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?detailing how data should be gathered and stored.
"The custodian of records of [redacted] shall produce to NSA upon service of the appropriate secondary order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this order," the primary order reads.???
It originally was not set to be declassified until April 12, 2038. ?
Snowden offered details to news agencies about a court order calling for Verizon to hand over Americans phone records and the existence of a program called Prism, which collects bulk data of foreign citizens that are suspected to be involved with terrorist organizations.
The declassified documents also contain information about government efforts to gather intelligence on electronic communications. The Dec. 4, 2009 report to the House Intelligence Committee shows that for years the NSA has been collecting records of all Americans emails, including the sender, recipient and time of day the emails were sent.
However the content of those communications have not been collected, according to the report.
Officials have previously acknowledged the bulk collection of emails was terminated in December 2011 after questions arose about its usefulness.
The 2009 document also notes that the collection of phone and email data is ?some of the most sensitive? intelligence gathering programs conducted by the government, and warns members of Congress that public disclosure of their existence would cause ?exceptionally grave? damage to national security.
The report then describes both the telephone and emails efforts as programs that "operate on a very large scale" and had been authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court under regular? day orders .
In addition to the bulk collection of telephone records being collected under the Patriot Act, the report states that another legal authority -- called the "pen register" provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act-- authorized the government "to collect similar kinds of information about electronic communications."
These electronic communications are described in the report as "the 'to? and 'from' lines in email and time an email is sent-- excluding the content of the email and the 'subject' line."
The report adds: "Again, this information is collected pursuant to court order (generally last 90 days) and, under relevant court decisions, is not protected by the Fourth Amendment."
Both the documents from 2009 and 2011 acknowledge there had been "compliance" problems? with both programs.
The 2009 report states that the problems "generally involved the implementation of highly sophisticated techniques"? that? "in some instances, resulted in the automated tools operating in a manner that was not completely consistent" with court orders.
The problems prompted the NSA to create an "Office of Compliance" to address the problems, the 2009 report states.
The documents also reference security contractors like Snowden, saying that ?appropriately trained and authorized technical personnel? may access the government data.?
Snowden, who remains stuck at an airport in Moscow awaiting an asylum request to the Russian government, has said he accessed information of the government?s massive intelligence gathering programs while working at intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.?
Also on Wednesday, the British newspaper The Guardian revealed another secret NSA spying program known as ?Xkeyscore,? which the paper reports allows analysts to search through huge databases including emails, online chats and internet history with no prior authorization.
Last week the House narrowly rejected a proposal that would have severely restricted the NSA?s ability to collect phone records, with some Congress? most liberal and conservative members voting in accord.
At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., pressed intelligence officials for hard numbers on how many potential terror plots have actually been foiled by the call-tracking database ?known as Section 215, the Patriot Act provision that authorizes it.
Leahy said he was ?far from convinced? that the intelligence officers know how many attacks have been thwarted by the collection of phone records.
He also criticized the documents made public Wednesday for containing little rationale behind the legalization of the program.
?It does not contain any real analysis of the 215 relevance standard,? he said.
Reuters contributed to this report.?
This story was originally published on Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:32 PM EDT
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