The secretive court that oversees US government spying requests has indicated that it will temporarily renew the National Security Agency‘s bulk phone records collection authority despite a new reform law that ended the dragnet.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) – often seen as a compliant „rubber stamp“ for US government spying requests – released an order on Friday positing that lapsed spying powers vested in the Patriot Act – which expired without renewal on June 1 — would not restrict the court from reauthorizing for six months the phone metadata collection program. The FISC order, though, is not yet an official revival of the NSA‘s surveillance program.