Even in that case, the N.S.A. may retain communications if they include that elusive foreign intelligence information, although they may not share it with prosecution lawyers.
So what good news, then, that the British government intends to force internet service providers to retain communications data for a full year.
In this hugely welcome and significant judgment, the court criticised the blanket nature of the obligation to retain communications data and the lack of safeguards, particularly as to who can authorise access.
In granting the expedited hearing, the president of the ECJ, the Belgian judge Koen Lenaerts, said the dispute was over Home Office powers "to require public telecommunications operators to retain communications data for a maximum period of 12 months, retention of the content of the communications concerned being excluded".
Among other things, the agency asked the companies to retain communications regarding monetary incentives that they provide to customers to store metal in the warehouses, as well as any complaints they may have received about their practices, according to the people who have reviewed the notices.
Lord Carlile told the Guardian: "We have taken the view that if the head of the security service and the current Metropolitan police commissioner argue that these powers are needed urgently to retain communications data due to changes in technology, then we needed to act now rather than wait for reports that we do not know when they will be completed.
Speaking to the Guardian at the time, he said: "We have taken the view that if the head of the security service and the current Metropolitan police commissioner argue that these powers are needed urgently to retain communications data due to changes in technology, then we needed to act now rather than wait for reports that we do not know when they will be completed".
It outlines their legal obligation to retain "communications data" on their customers.
The government says it was forced to act after the European Court struck down an EU directive in April requiring phone and internet companies to retain communications data on the grounds that it infringed human rights.
But added that, in her view, this requirement does not go far enough — arguing that police need the ability to retain communications data that was set out in the Communications Data bill.
