Despite controversy surrounding the National Security Agency and its collecting of phone records from every American, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court renewed the government’s authority to collect “telephony metadata,” according to a statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

The NSA’s authority to collect such data expires every 30 days and until now has been renewed without controversy or debate. Given the recent media coverage of the program, Clapper decided to declassify and disclose the renewal of authority. This is the first time this renewal has been declassified, and it follows the declassification of certain other information regarding the program that Clapper ordered on June 6, 2013.