The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court nixed a National Security Agency (NSA) request to retain phone records beyond the five years the law currently allows, according to a report in The Hill.
The FISA court noted in an order on Friday that the Justice Department argued that the NSA be allowed to hang on to the metadata for a longer period was “simply unpersuasive.”
Judge Reggie Walton noted in the court's opinion that amending the procedures would “further infringe on the privacy interests of United States persons" whose data was previously acquired by the agency.
The Justice Department had petitioned the court to extend the retention period, claiming it needed to hang on to the records to answer a number of lawsuits challenging the program from organizations and others like the ACLU and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky).
