Although the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court oversees some of the government’s surveillance activities, it operates in near-total secrecy through one-sided procedures that heavily favor the government. The Patriot Act has also made it easier for the government to spy on Americans right here at home over the past 15 years.
They are largely enabled by a problematic law passed by Congress - the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which is set to expire this year - along with Executive Order 12,333, the primary authority invoked by the NSA to conduct surveillance outside of the United States. The government’s surveillance programs have infiltrated most of the communications technologies we have come to rely on. Today, it continues to spy on a vast but unknown number of Americans’ international calls, text messages, web-browsing activities, and emails. Disclosures have shown that, until recently, the government regularly tracked the calls of hundreds of millions of Americans. The National Security Agency’s mass surveillance has greatly expanded in the years since September 11, 2001.
