Electronic surveillance

Surveillance After the USA Freedom Act: How Much Has Changed?

It has been two and a half years since Edward Snowden's disclosures revealed the massive scope of our government's bulk surveillance of global telecommunications. The first document to be published from Snowden's trove showed that the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had ordered Verizon to turn over logs of all calls made to and from its customers.

Of the many bulk surveillance programs Snowden brought to light, this "phone records" program has continued to attract the most attention, in part because its features -- surveillance of everyone in a well-defined set of American customers, under an identified statutory authority (section 215 of the PATRIOT Act) -- were tailor-made to be challenged in court.