Cora Currier reports in The Intercept on the classified rules that allow the FBI to obtain journalists’ phone records with approval from two internal officials, less oversight than under normal judicial procedures, according to Currier. The Intercept is reporting on classified rules from 2013, governing the FBI’s use of National Security Letters, which allow the FBI to find out about journalists’ calls without going to a judge or informing the news organization that is under surveillance. There is an extra step if the NSL targets a journalist specifically, “to identify confidential news media sources.” Then, the general counsel and the executive assistant director talk the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division about the case. Christopher Allen, a spokesperson for the FBI would not comment other to say they are “very clear” that “the FBI cannot predicate investigative activity solely on the exercise of First Amendment rights.” Bruce Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that the “use of NSLs as a way around the protections in the guidelines is a serious concern for news organizations.” The Reporters Committee last week filed a brief for the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s lawsuit for the FBI’s NSL rules and other documents on behalf of 37 news organizations, including The Intercept.