Secret court had reservations about allowing NSA e-mail tapping

US secret court Fisa had reservations about the request by the NSA secret service to store email metadata in bulk. The judge eventually allowed it out of ‘respect for the judgment of the executive branch’.

When exactly that permission was given has been crossed out from the recently declassified previously secret document, but it is believed to be in mid-2004. It is the first time that the judgment of the American secret court Fisa has been published, writes The Guardian. It involves collecting metadata from e-mails, such as to whom and when an e-mail was sent. That data can be searched by analysts from the NSA for a year and a half, after which it is stored ‘offline’ for a few more years.

The judge acknowledged that the NSA asked for permission to collect a lot of data. “These definitions encompass a broad form of collection.” The judge also expressed doubts about collecting all that data, but ultimately decided to allow it. “We must respect the discretion of the executive in assessing and responding to threats to national security.”

The program to collect all email metadata ran from 2004 to 2011, after which it was discontinued, partly because it was said to be too resource-intensive. The metadata was presumably collected from American mail providers and internet exchanges. Because a lot of data traffic runs through American nodes and many people purchase e-mail from an American service provider, the NSA was probably able to intercept a lot of mail.