Collection of domestic phone records under the USA FREEDOM Act
(Updated: July 15, 2018) One of the most controversial NSA programs revealed by Edward Snowden was the bulk collection of domestic telephone records under the authority of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. A detailed analysis of the workings of this program was published on this weblog earlier. In 2015, Section 215 was replaced by the USA FREEDOM Act, which prohibited the collection in bulk and provided more safeguards. The NSA became much more transparant about this program, which gives the opportunity for the following explanation of how the domestic phone records program currently works. NSA is also more transparant about things going wrong: last month it revealed that it had to delete all the telephone records collected since 2015 due to technical irregularities. Screenshot from 60 Minutes from December 15, 2013, showing an NSA contact chaining tool used for the telephone records collected under Section 215. Collection under Section 215 USA PATRIOT Act The NSA started its bu