The Obama administration published the heavily censored files as part of ongoing civil liberties lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the government's collection of U.S. communications records, which the White House has said is a crucial tool to track terrorists.
The latest release with much of the documents heavily blacked out reflects the administration's strenuous efforts to maintain its legal authority to collect Americans' phone records and some email data amid opposition on Capitol Hill. The administration has been under pressure to reveal more details about NSA operations since former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden leaked top-secret documents detailing the agency's collection of millions of U.S. communications records.
In one of the newly released documents, the secret intelligence court judge, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, expressed dismay in 2009 over the continuing errors after the government had repeatedly said it would fix the problems. "Those responsible for conducting oversight at the NSA had failed to do so effectively," Bates said, calling that the most charitable conclusion he could come to.
Litt said Tuesday the NSA had taken multiple steps since those documents were produced, including appointing a compliance officer and hiring a 300-person team to oversee operations which he said has helped address the frequent "disconnect" between NSA operators and lawyers in the early days of the program, such that those doing the searching didn't always know the rules. He pointed out that NSA is now hiring a privacy officer who will further monitor whether Americans' civil liberties are being protected.
Similar documents about the U.S. collecting phone records were previously declassified and published in response to a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Obama administration has revealed others to persuade Congress to allow it to continue collecting the phone records.
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Associated Press writers Jack Gillum, Stephen Braun, Matt Apuzzo, Lolita C. Baldor, Charles Babington, Marcy Gordon and Richard Lardner contributed to this report.