NSA Ends Bulk Collection of Americans’ Telecommunications Data
The bulk collection of Americans’ telecommunications data by the National Security Agency (NSA) ended on this day. The practice was ordered stopped by Congress with the USA Freedom Act, enacted and signed into law by President Barack Obama on June 2, 2015.
The end to the collection of metadata of Americans’ telecommunications data, which civil libertarians and many others denounced as spying, was one of the major results of the revelations of NSA spying by Edward Snowden, which began in June 5, 2013.
Metadata is defined as the record of a person’s incoming and outgoing telecommunications, and by itself does not include any record of the content of those communications.
Under the terms of the USA Freedom Act, phone companies continue to possess telecommunication records, and the government may obtain records only with a search warrant.
Get the full story: Luke Harding, The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man (2014)
Learn more; documents and analysis of the Snowden/NSA documents at the National Security Archive: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB436/
Read about President Obama’s national security policy: Charlie Savage, Power Wars: Inside Obama’s Post-9/11 Presidency (2015)
Watch the acclaimed film about Snowden: Citizenfour (2014)
Watch an interview with Snowden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yB3n9fu-rM