![]() NSA data center (seen from Freedom Ridge) 15, Bluffdale, Utah, USA (Image by gruntzooki) Details DMCA | The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled late Monday that the National Security Agency may temporarily resume its once-secret program that systematically collects records of Americans' domestic phone calls in bulk. The program had lapsed on June 1, when a law on which it was based, Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, expired. Congress revived that provision on June 2 with a bill called the U.S.A. Freedom Act, which said that the provision could only be used for bulk collection for six months. The six-month period was intended to give intelligence agencies time to move to a new system in which the phone records would stay in the hands of phone companies, though the agency could still gain access to them. |