New documents show NSA surveillance program began in 2001

New documents declassified by the Director for National Intelligence, James Clapper, reveal how the NSA was first approved for “collecting bulk communication data in the hunt for Al-Qaeda terrorists after 9/11.”

President Barack Obama’s administration has for the first time publicly confirmed “the existence of collection activities authorized by President George W. Bush,” such as bulk amounts of Internet and phone metadata, as part of the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” (TSP).

The Obama administration is attempting to justify the NSA’s surveillance activities, following massive leaks to the media about the classified programs by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Clapper explained on Saturday that President George W. Bush first authorized the spying in October 2001, just weeks after the September 11 attacks.

It was revealed that President Bush issued authorizations every 30-60 days.

Each authorization required “the minimization of information collected concerning American citizens to the extent consistent with the effective accomplishment of the mission of detection and prevention of acts of terrorism within the United States. NSA also applied additional internal constraints on the presidentially authorized activities.”

The collection of communications content pursuant to presidential authorization ended in 2007, when the government switched TSP to FISA’s authority, and put it under the orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

A judge just ruled the data collection was “unconstitutional” and the government has never proved it was ever successfully in thwarting terrorist plots.

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