Already under fire from conservatives and liberals for his broad surveillance of Associated Press and Fox News reporters, Attorney General Eric Holder is about to face much tougher questions from Congress after the Guardian reported yesterday that the National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. Verizon customers.
The “business records” loophole
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not allow the NSA to listen in on purely domestic phone calls. However, 50 USC 1861 (a.k.a. the Patriot Act), does allow the NSA to collect “business records” from communication companies, including numbers dialed and received, length of call, customer names, and customer financial information. Probable cause is not needed to collect this information since Americans do not have a privacy interest in the commercial transactions they undertake.
