US government "collecting Verizon phone data" THE U.S. government has been secretly collecting the telephone records of customers of phone network Verizon under a top secret court order, according to a document disclosed by a British newspaper. The court order to collect phone records was granted by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on April 25 and runs until July 19, according to The Guardian. The order requires Verizon, one of America's largest telecommunications companies, on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the National Security Agency information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries. The newspaper said the document, a copy of which it had obtained, shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of U.S. citizens were being collected indiscriminately and in bulk, regardless of whether they were suspected of any wrongdoing. The Obama administration defended the government's need to collect telephone records of U.S. citizens, but critics said it was a huge over-reach. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said on Thursday that the top secret court order for telephone records is a three-month renewal of an ongoing practice. The White House offered no immediate on-the-record comment. A senior administration official did not confirm the Guardian report that the NSA has been collecting the records, but the authenticity of the document was not disputed. The disclosure was likely to bring questions from both Republicans and Democrats of how far the government's surveillance of Americans goes, following the Obama administration's tracking of Associated Press journalists" phone records in a leak investigation. The president has also faced questions over the federal tax agency's improper targeting of conservative groups and the administration's handling of the terrorist attack on a consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead. The controversies collectively could erode the American people's trust in Obama and derail his second term agenda. Former Vice President Al Gore tweeted that privacy was essential in the digital era. "It is just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous?" wrote Gore, the Democrat who lost the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said the Obama administration should disclose the facts. "I think that they have an obligation to respond immediately," said Wyden, a frequent critic of government actions dealing with Americans" privacy. Verizon spokesman Ed McFadden said Wednesday the company had no comment. The NSA had no immediate comment. Verizon Communications Inc. listed 121 million customers in its first-quarter earnings report this April - 98.9 million wireless customers, 11.7 million residential phone lines and about 10 million commercial lines. The court order didn't specify which type of phone customers" records were being tracked. Under the terms of the order, the phone numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as are location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered. The law on which the order explicitly relies is the "business records" provision of the USA Patriot Act, which passed after Sept.