国际英语新闻:Court filing reveals another database collecting telephone records in U.S.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The existence of another database of American telephone records was revealed on Friday, adding new details to the disclosures in recent years about mass government surveillance in the United Sates.

The revelation of the new secret government telephone database came in a court filing in Washington in the case of a man accused of conspiring to unlawfully export electronic goods to Iran.

According to the court records, the database, maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration, contains the records of calls made between phone numbers in the United States and overseas, even if there is no evidence the callers were involved in criminal activity.

The metadata consisted of telephone numbers, dates, times and duration of calls and billing information, court records stated.

No subscriber or personal identification information was recorded in the database. Contents of the calls also were not recorded.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal quoted a justice official saying that the program was suspended in September 2013 and ultimately terminated.

"It has not been active nor searchable since September 2013, and all of the information has been deleted," the official, who is not authorized to comment publicly, was quoted, while saying "the agency is no longer collecting bulk telephony metadata from U.S. service providers."