The Guardian reports: The top lawyer for the US director of national intelligence suggested Friday that the intelligence community would consider changes to its controversial bulk surveillance of telephone records.

The apparent openness to modifying the surveillance efforts comes after a week of increasing criticism on Capitol Hill by Republican and Democratic legislators.

Robert S Litt, speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Friday, strongly defended the legality and propriety of the National Security Agency collecting telephone records on millions of Americans prior to specific national-security investigations.

“It is, however, not the only way that we could regulate intelligence collection,” Litt said. “We’re currently working to declassify more information about our activities to inform that discussion,” particularly concerning the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone records. [Continue reading…]