( CNN ) -- The Obama administration is asking a special federal court to allow its secret storage of telephone records to be extended beyond the current five-year limit . In a legal brief filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that was revealed Wednesday , the Justice Department said several civil lawsuits over the government 's so-called metadata collection program require it to preserve those records . `` When litigation is pending against a party ( or reasonably anticipated ) , that party has a duty to preserve -- that is to identify , locate and maintain -- relevant information that may be evidence in the case , '' said federal officials , noting that evidence would likely be used at a trial , which may not be held for months , even years . Current surveillance court orders require the National Security Agency or telecommunication companies that gathered the phone records to destroy the material within five years . The court is likely to grant the request , but may seek assurances the agency would not access the material for intelligence-gathering purposes , absent a warrant . NSA leaker Edward Snowden last June revealed a secret surveillance court order approving government collection of mass amounts of metadata from telecom giant Verizon and leading Internet companies , including Microsoft , Apple , Google , Yahoo and Facebook . It includes phone numbers called and their location . The exact percentage of metadata being collected has not been revealed publicly . Monitoring of actual conversations requires a separate warrant . President Barack Obama last month cited privacy concerns when announcing that such data should no longer be held by the government , but instead be turned over to the domestic telecoms or a private third party . NSA would still have access to the calls to track potential terror connections . He ordered the intelligence community to formulate such a plan by March 28 . The mission of the FISA court , named after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that created it , is to decide whether to grant certain types of government requests -- wiretapping , data analysis , and other monitoring for `` foreign intelligence purposes '' of suspected terrorists and spies operating in the United States . The once-secret approval of collecting bits and pieces of information from electronic communications comes quarterly from judges at the court . To collect the information , the government has to demonstrate to a judge that it is `` relevant '' to an international terrorism investigation . There were 1,856 applications in 2012 to the FISA Court for electronic surveillance and physical searches for `` foreign intelligence purposes , '' the Justice Department said . The current case is In re : Application of the FBI for an Order Requiring the Production of Tangible Things ( BR 14-01 ) .
The Obama administration is asking a secret court to set five - year limit . The Justice Department says litigation requires that records be kept longer . Edward Kennedy leaks the sweeping U.S. release of personal data .