"The Obama administration for more than two years permitted the National Security Agency to continue collecting vast amounts of records detailing the email and internet usage of Americans, according to secret documents obtained by the Guardian."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
The report:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
According to a top-secret draft report by the NSA's inspector general – published for the first time today by the Guardian – the agency began "collection of bulk internet metadata" involving "communications with at least one communicant outside the United States or for which no communicant was known to be a citizen of the United States".
Eventually, the NSA gained authority to "analyze communications metadata associated with United States persons and persons believed to be in the United States", according to a 2007 Justice Department memo, which is marked secret.
According to the administration, the program Greenwald is referring to ended in 2011.
But:
But while that specific program has ended, additional secret NSA documents seen by the Guardian show that some collection of Americans' online records continues today. In December 2012, for example, the NSA launched one new program allowing it to analyze communications with one end inside the US, leading to a doubling of the amount of data passing through its filters.
9:20 AM PT: A couple of interesting comments on the article: "I'm having trouble processing this rationale. If it's OK for the US government to collect any data that might be stored, or shared with any private company, what's to stop them going after bank records, or credit card data, or medical data? What are the limits? There don't appear to be any. Who gets to decide what's "content" and what isn't?"
"Do I understand correctly that the NSA did an end run around the President's order? That's stunning.
When, if ever, did the President learn about that and, if so, what was his response?"