Counterterrorism is The Administration’s Excuse for Collecting Millions of American’s Phone Records

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Thursday defended its collection of the telephone records of millions of Americans as part of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, re-igniting a fierce debate over privacy even as it called the program critical to warding off an attack.

The admission came after Britain’s Guardian newspaper published on Wednesday a secret court order authorizing the collection of phone records generated by millions of Verizon Communicationscustomers.

Privacy advocates blasted the order as unconstitutional government surveillance and called for a review of the program amid renewed concerns about intelligence-gathering efforts launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The revelation also put a spotlight on the handling of intelligence and privacy issues by President Barack Obama’s administration, which already is under fire for searching the telephone records of Associated Press journalists and the emails and phone records of a Fox News Channel reporter as part of its inquiries into leaked government information.

“The United States should not be accumulating phone records on tens of millions of innocent Americans. That is not what democracy is about. That is not what freedom is about,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont….”

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Not even half the story….