Confirmed: NSA collection of millions of phone records 'renewal of ongoing practice'

The chairwoman of the US Senate Intelligence committee has said that the state has been collecting the telephone records of millions of US Verizon customers since 2006, and the order is a three-month renewal of a continuing practice.

The collection of records was “on an ongoing daily basis,” beginning on April 25, 2013 and ending July 19, 2013, Dianne Feinstein, a Democratic Senator from California confirmed to reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday. However, the practice may have been ongoing for seven years prior to its exposure.

"As far as I know, this is the exact three-month renewal of what has been the case for the past seven years. This renewal is carried out by the [foreign intelligence surveillance] court under the business records section of the Patriot Act. Therefore, it is lawful. It has been briefed to Congress," she told reporters.

One anonymous expert contacted by the Washington Post in the wake of the scandal reiterated that the order appeared to be a routine renewal of a strikingly similar order issued by the same court in 2006, and renewed every three months since.

The top secret order required Verizon, one of the largest telecom agencies in the US, to provide both the FBI and the NSA information on all telephone calls made through its systems, both domestically and to foreign countries. A copy was obtained by the Guardian and published on Wednesday.

According to a copy of the order, Verizon is required to disclose the numbers of both parties during a call, as well as location, call duration, and other unique data on an "ongoing, daily basis.” Meaning that, regardless of whether an individual is suspected of or linked to any crime, the data of all Verizon customers is currently being delivered in bulk to the intelligence agency.

Verizon did not confirm the existence of the top secret order. In a memo sent to employees on Thursday, they stated that they were forbidden "from revealing the order's existence."

The court order expressively forbade Verizon from disclosing the existence of any US government request for the company’s customer records, according to the original Guardian exclusive.

As to the authority claimed by the government via this order, that is specifically cited to fall under the “business records” provision of the PATRIOT Act of 2001, which was granted a four-year extension by President Obama in May of 2011.

It remains unclear as to whether the order, which spans a three-month period, represents a single instance, or is indicative of recurring cases of Verizon and other telephone providers being ordered to disclose all their clients' call records.

The practice may also be more widespread among communications data companies than initially believed: CNBC contacted Sprint, a global provider of internet and communications services. The company told CNBC on Thursday that it had no comment on whether it may have received a similar FISA court order.

“If they have them for telecom companies, they probably have similar orders for internet companies,” Alex Abdo, an attorney with the ACLU's national security project told NBC’s Rachel Maddow.