Electronic surveillance

NSA begins new phone surveillance program as bulk metadata collection ends

No longer will the NSA rely on the Patriot Act’s Section 215 to collect all phone records. Instead it will have to contact telecommunications companies holding the data for them. Unlike general warrants leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden such as the one issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) granting the NSA access to all Verizon customers’ records, the new program only allows the NSA to collect records from telecoms when a “specific selection term” pertaining to limited data is outlined in a FISC warrant, which will limit investigations of the metadata to six months.

The move has encouraged a wide variety of opinions to be voiced.

"The act struck a reasonable compromise which allows us to continue to protect the country while implementing various reforms," Ned Price, a spokesman of the National Security Council, an advisory group to the US President, told Reuters.