The federal surveillance court that has approved all but a fraction of the NSA's intelligence requests nonetheless rejected a petition by the government to retain phone records for longer than five years, as is currently allowed.

The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (also known as the FISA Court) was established in 1978 as a gatekeeper that would approve or deny surveillance warrants against suspect foreign enemies living inside the United States. Since that date, the court has denied 11 of the nearly 34,000 surveillance requests by the government.

While judges on the court have said that they force the government to make changes to approximately one-quarter of those requests, the .03 percent decline rate has been startling to civil liberties advocates.

Judge Reggie Walton acted as a rare bump in that road this week when he denied the US Department of Justice's request to keep the telephone metadata collected by the NSA past the five-year deadline. The Obama administration had asked the FISA Court to bend the rules so that the Justice Department could adequately defend itself from a series of lawsuits filed by various groups, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) chief among them.

US attorneys argued in a court filing last month that when "preservation of information is required, the duty to preserve supersedes statutory or regulatory requirements or records-management policies that would otherwise result in the destruction of the information."

Authorities proposed that the information be retained, although they sought to make it illegal for any NSA analyst to examine the data as they would information that is not five years old.

That is not enough of an excuse, Walton ruled, saying that he found that rationale to be "simply unresponsive" and that the groups that have filed suit are hoping for "the destruction of the [telephone] metadata, not its retention."

The judge concluded that any reason to keep the telephone records is outweighed by the damage that such a decision would do to privacy.

Justice Department attorneys may have expected such a decision from Walton who, even as chief judge of the FISA Court, has admitted skepticism with the program since the government's methods were first revealed. Judge Walton told The Washington Post in August that the court, which is supposed to act as the final barometer, is unable to verify the very information provided by law enforcement.

"The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the court," he wrote. "The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance, and in that respect the FISC is in the same position as any other court when it comes to enforcing [government] compliance with its orders."

READ MORE: In rare loss, FISA court rejects Justice Dept request to retain data

These tunnel systems were built a very long time ago by the "gods' from the stars – the Anunnaki being just one of many species. Other, older races of 'creator gods' and 'life designers' were roaming the Earth simultaneously but also during different time periods. The perhaps largest tunnel system on the planet, so it appears, can be accessed from underneath the Sphinx. That system is multiple levels deep and reaches across a large portion of Africa. These tunnels, according to my current research, were built by some of the original Elohim (not to be confused with the Anunnaki).

Underground City is an ancient multi-level underground city in the Derinkuyu district in Nevşehir Province, Turkey. It is on the road between Nevşehir and Niğde, at a distance of 29 km from Nevşehir. With its thirteen floors extending to a depth of approximately 85 m, it was large enough to shelter 30,000 thousands people together with their livestock and food stores. It is the largest excavated underground city in Turkey and is part of a network of several underground complexes found across Cappadocia.

READ MORE: Derinkuyu, Underground City, Ancient Village or Ancient Refugee Settlement?

An apparently bugged phone conversation in which a senior US diplomat disparages the EU over the Ukraine crisis has been posted online. The alleged conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, appeared on YouTube on Thursday. It is not clearly when the alleged conversation took place.

Here is a transcript, with analysis by BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus:

READ MORE - Warning: This transcript contains swearing.

On Thursday, the Brookings Institution issued a memo to President Obama titled "Venezuela Breaks Down in Violence." As might be expected from the title, the memo (and an accompanying video) depicts an alarming situation where:

Venezuela is experiencing declining export revenues, accelerating inflation and widespread shortages of basic consumer goods. At the same time, the Maduro administration has foreclosed peaceful options for Venezuelans to bring about a change in its current policies.

But, contrary to the alarmist title, the violence is only a possibility in the future: "Economic mismanagement in Venezuela has reached such a level that it risks inciting a violent popular reaction," and further on the reader learns that actually "[t]he risk of a violent outcome may still be low..."

The possibility of such chaos is troubling to the author, Harold Trinkunas since "it is in the U.S. interest that Venezuela remain a reliable source of oil," while "[p]opular unrest in a country with multiple armed actors, including the military, the militia, organized crime and pro-government gangs, is a recipe for unwelcome chaos and risks an interruption of oil production."

READ MORE: Brookings Institution Calls on Obama to Support a Hypothetical Coup Against Venezuela's Maduro

KIEV, Ukraine — The United States and the European Union have embraced the revolution here as another flowering of democracy, a blow to authoritarianism and kleptocracy in the former Soviet space. But successful revolutions, as the interim government here has been learning, are a lot harder to maintain than it can seem in the bright dawn of first victories.

The challenges for Ukraine's new leaders are many and varied. With President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia now openly intent on a military showdown over control of Crimea, the government faces a powerful test of Ukraine's territorial integrity. Demonstrations are growing in the Russian-speaking east of the country, underscoring the tenuous nature of the government's control there. Washington and Brussels, Kiev's only hopes at this point for the aid necessary to avert economic collapse, are scrambling to deliver and have shown no desire for an armed confrontation with Russia.

READ MORE: After Initial Triumph, Ukraine’s Leaders Face Battle for Credibility

Organised criminals were able to infiltrate Scotland Yard "at will" by bribing corrupt officers, according to an explosive report leaked to The Independent. The Metropolitan Police file, written in 2002, found Britain's biggest force suffered "endemic corruption" at the time.

Operation Tiberius concluded that syndicates such as the notorious Adams family and the gang led by David Hunt had bribed scores of former and then-serving detectives to access confidential databases; obtain live intelligence on criminal investigations; provide specialist knowledge of surveillance, technical deployment and undercover techniques to help evade prosecution; and even take part in criminal acts such as mass drug importation and money laundering.

The strategic intelligence scoping exercise – "ratified by the most senior management" at Scotland Yard – found murder investigations had been infiltrated and sensitive intelligence regarding other organised crime investigations had been leaked, allowing the offenders to escape justice.

The author lamented the Met's inability to root out the problem. More worryingly, he also appeared to question Scotland Yard's commitment to tackle organised crime corruption in the ranks. "For whatever reason, the current approach is simply to wait for the corruption intelligence to surface and to then react to it," Tiberius concluded.

Later, it added: "These syndicates are organised and all working towards the common goals of making profit, laundering their money, evading prosecution and preventing the forfeiture of their assets. The achievement of these goals is focused and determined; the law enforcement investigation should follow this lead."

Tiberius identified 80 corrupt individuals with links to the police, including 42 then-serving officers and 19 former detectives.

It concluded: "Organised crime is currently able to infiltrate the MPS at will."

READ MORE: Exclusive: Scotland Yard’s rotten core: Police failed to address Met's ‘endemic corruption’