Obama Administration Declassifies Phone Spying Document, With Redactions

President Barack Obama speaks at a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington,Tuesday, April 30, 2013. The president said the US doesn't know how or when chemical weapons were u... President Barack Obama speaks at a news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington,Tuesday, April 30, 2013. The president said the US doesn't know how or when chemical weapons were used in Syria or who used them. MORE LESS
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is declassifying documents about its telephone spying program to try to tamp down congressional opposition to domestic surveillance.

The documents will provide little solace, however, to Americans hoping to understand the legal analysis that underpinned the widespread surveillance.

And the redacted documents show only in broad strokes how National Security Agency officials use the data.

One particular type of analysis, called “hop analysis” is hinted at but never fully discussed. That allows to the government to search the phone records of not only suspected terrorists, but everyone who called them, everyone who called those people, and others who called them, as well.

With that authority, the government can search the records of millions of people in an investigation of one person.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

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