Administration to Declassify, Release FISA Orders for Verizon

Today in time for Senate hearings

The Obama administration has declassified a secret order directing Verizon Communications to turn over a vast number of Americans' phone records, and it plans to disclose the document Wednesday morning in time for a Senate hearing, according to senior U.S. officials.

The order was issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to a subsidiary of Verizon in April. Officials described it as the formal order underlying the directive that was disclosed in June by Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor.