"Director of Central Intelligence Agency Tenet, on behalf of the White House, asks NSA Director Hayden whether the NSA could do more against terrorism. Hayden replies that nothing more could be done within existing authorities, but would get back to him about what NSA could do with more authority."

The start of a four year period (until January 2006) when only FISA Court Presiding Judge Royce Lamberth, followed by Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, are told about the Program.

John Yoo drafts a subsequent memo in October 2002, which largely “reiterates the same basic analysis contained” in the original November 2001 OLC memorandum.

John Yoo resigns, ending a nearly two year period that began in October 2001 in which only one OLC attorney was advising Attorney General Ashcroft and White House officials on the Program. Patrick Philbin assumes the role of John Yoo.

"Beginning in August 2003, Philbin and later Goldsmith brought their concerns about the OLC legal opinions to Attorney General Ashcroft. With Ashcroft's approval, Philbin began preparing a new OLC memorandum assessing the legality of the [Program]."

Gonzales and other White House and intelligence agency officials, including the Vice President and NSA Director Michael Hayden, convene an "emergency meeting" in the White House Situation Room with Congress’ Gang of Eight.

On May 6, 2004 [OLC Lawyers] "Goldsmith and Philbin completed an OLC legal memorandum assessing the legality of the PSP as it was operating at that time...The OLC memorandum stated that the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001 gave the President authority to use both domestically and abroad 'all necessary and appropriate force,' including signals intelligence capabilities, to prevent future acts of international terrorism against the United States."

Senate Committee on the Judiciary issues subpoena to the Office of the Vice President asking questions about the warrentless wiretapping program.

In response to a June 27, 2007 subpoena issued by the Committee on the Judiciary to the Office of the Vice President relating to past warrantless electronic surveillance, the Office of the Vice President identifies 43 Program Orders (and two amended Program Orders) between October 4, 2001 and December 2006.

Director of National Intelligence (“DNI”) J. Michael McConnell explains, under the program's surveillance, immediately after acquisition “[t]here is no human that is aware of it. So you wouldn’t know that [communications without foreign intelligence value were there] until you went into the database.”

In Congressional Testimony, DNI McConnell reveals that Americans' information that is collected and stored by NSA is not minimized until a human reviews the collection.

In one of three declarations by NSA whistleblowers, William Binney estimates that "no fewer than 10 and possibly in excess of 20 intercept centers within the United States" were installed in telecom stations around the country.

Hayden "laid out his ‘expansive view’ of his authorities after 9/11 and how they changed his reading of what the NSA could and couldn’t do under foreign intelligence law.” Nancy Pelosi reaches out to the Administration in an effort to better understand the NSA's surveillance activities, but the Administration “stonewalled her staff when they tried to follow up afterwards, citing classified material.”

Pelosi sends personal letter to Hayden stamped Top Secret about the expanded authorities Hayden described during the October 1 Congressional briefing, not knowing the President had expanded them even further on October 4. “I am concerned whether, and to what extent, the National Security Agency has received specific presidential authorization for the operations you are conducting,” she writes.

Hayden responds to Pelosi by saying curtly: "'[I]n my briefing I was attempting to emphasize that I had used my authorities to adjust NSA’s collection and reporting.' In other words there had been no presidential directive. The NSA was acting on its own authority," Eric Lichtblau writes. Hayden does not address Bush's order to expand his powers further.

Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, who usually signed off on FISA applications for the Justice Department before they go to the FISA court, receives an application for a surveillance order with no indication from where the lead came. He refuses to sign off on it. "When Thompson asked [his deputy] for his legal opinion on signing these mysterious new warrants, his answer was firm: Don’t do it.” From then on, the administration gets someone else to sign off on FISA applications for the Justice Department.

Bush's Law by Eric Lichtblau recalls much of the information from the Mark Klein declaration. Lichtblau writes: AT&T technician Mark Klein “answered the door of his office complex...to find an NSA representative who was there on an undisclosed mission. Not long after Klein learned of a secret room being built on the sixth floor of another AT&T facility on Folsom Street” in San Francisco. “Then he heard from other AT&T technicians about similar mystery rooms in other cities across the country. As Klein pieced together all the strange things he’d seen, the first thing he thought about was George Orwell’s 1984.”

Justice Department hints at Bush’s theory on domestic spying "in a little-noticed legal brief in an unrelated court case in 2002. That brief said that 'the Constitution vests in the president inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that constitutional authority.'"

“Following President Bush’s order [in early October], US intelligence officials secretly arranged with top officials of major telecommunications companies to gain access to large telecommunications switches carrying the bulk of America’s phone calls...Only a very few top executives in each corporation are aware of such relationships or know about the willingness of the corporations to cooperate on intelligence matters...With its direct access to the US telecommunications system, there seems to be no physical or logistical obstacle to prevent the NSA from eavesdropping on anyone in the United States that it chooses.”

Judge Kollar-Kotelly succeeded Judge Lamberth as Chief Judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. After Judge Lamberth, she was the second member of the judiciary with knowledge of the NSA's domestic spying program.

New FISA Chief Judge Kollar-Kotelly goes to Attorney General John Ashcroft demanding changes to the Justice Department's FISA orders after its clear they're getting information from the NSA. “The Justice Department was forced to shut down its end of the NSA operation for a period of weeks early that year to figure out how to build the wall back up and protect some semblance of due process.”

“Senator Rockefeller wrote a letter to Cheney saying that he was troubled by the NSA operation and its potential for the abuse of the civil liberties of American citizens...there is no evidence that he ever received a response from Cheney.”

The documents Mark Klein brings to EFF reveal the installation of equipment that directs communication into the SG3 "Secret" Room, including advanced analytical technology called the Narus STA 6400, a computer that can read and analyze tens of thousands of communications per second and then send those communications to a central database, according to technical expert Brian Reid.

Judge Walker allows the US Government to intervene in the case against the telecommunication carriers for their role in the NSA's spying program.

Judge Walker rules that declarations and most of the documents provided by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein should be unsealed and released to the public.

EFF files the final brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the retroactive immunity provision of the FISA Amendments Act. The provision provides the Attorney General with the power to grant immunity to telecommunications companies that may have helped the US Government in the warrantless wiretapping program.

EFF's Legal Director Cindy Cohn argues before the Ninth Circuit that the FISA Amendments Act's grant of retroactive immunity for telecom companies violates the Constitutional principles of separation of powers and due process. Click here for a video of the hearing.

The Ninth Circuit upholds the dismissal of Hepting v. AT&T, which was the first lawsuit against a telecom for its participation in the NSA's domestic spying program. The court finds that the so-called "retroactive immunity" passed by Congress to stop telecommunications customers from suing the companies is constitutional, in part because the customers could still bring claims against the government.

EFF files its opening brief in the Ninth Circuit. In its brief EFF argues, among other arguments, that Section 802 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act of 2008 cedes unrestrained power by Congress to the Executive Branch by empowering the Attorney General to nullify existing federal law and preempt existing state law governing the actions in violation of Constitution's principle of separation of powers.

The government files its response to EFF's opening brief in the Ninth Circuit. The government argues that the District Court rightly upheld the constitutionality of the telcom immunity provision of the FISA Amendments Act.

The brief argues that, contrary to EFF's position that Section 802 of the FISA Amendments Act is unconstitutional, Congress does have the power to cede the ability to grant retroactive immunity to the Attorney General.

EFF argues that the FISA Amendments Act's retroactive immunity provision are unconstitutional.

Under President Obama, the government argues that litigation over the warrantless wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged "state secrets"—essentially repeating the arguments made by the Bush Administration in its attempts to block lawsuits over the illegal spying.

In the ruling, US District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker holds that the privacy harm to millions of Americans from the illegal spying dragnet was not a "particularized injury" but instead a "generalized grievance" because almost everyone in the United States has phone and Internet service. As a result, the District Court dismisses Jewel on the grounds that, because millions of Americans had been illegally spied upon, the claims in the suit were better resolved by the political, rather than the judicial, branches of government.

EFF files a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit as a result of the Northern District Court's January dismissal.

In the motion for partial summary judgment filed in the District Court, EFF asks the court to hold that the processes in FISA that require the court to determine whether electronic surveillance was conducted legally preempt the state secrets argument that the government has been using in its attempts to sidetrack this important litigation.

EFF argues, again, that the state secrets privilege does not prevent the court from hearing the case and that the case can move forward using procedures established by FISA.

"Comey did not even know about the operation in his early days as deputy attorney general." When he was "read in" to the Program, he "was stunned to learn that the administration had been bypassing the FISA court and was allowing the NSA to conduct wiretaps on Americans without warrants."

"By March of 2004, the Justice Department's concerns had grown so severe that senior officials there were considering refusing to recertify the program under the process Bush had set up in first authorizing it."

"Ashcroft told associates that the White House, in seeking his sign-off at the very outset of the program in 2001, had 'just shoved it in front of me and told me to sign it,' according to one official with knowledge of the conversation."

NSA Inspector General Joel Brenner and NSA Acting General Counsel Vito Potenza, "were conducting a review of their agency's two-year-old special surveillance program." They knew how it worked, but "did not know why exactly the Bush administration believed all this was legal." When they went to Addington's office to read the opinion this was the response: "'This is none of your business!' Addington exploded. 'This is the president's program!'...'If NSA lawyers had seen the NSA opinions, they would have cried foul, because the opinions were incompetent in areas the NSA lawyers knew everything about,' an official said."

Jack Goldsmith is newly appointed and will shortly begin a legal review of the NSA Domestic Spying in December. In a hearing before Congress, he recalls the warrantless wiretapping program as "the biggest legal mess I've ever encountered."

"For more than two years of the program's operation, Ashcroft had never blanched. Now, as he sat with Comey in his office that day in early March of 2004, he was hearing his top deputy spell out his concerns—and the concerns of his own Office of Legal Counsel—about why aspects of President Bush's signature anti-terror program might be illegal."

"On March 5, 2004, Goldsmith advised [Deputy Attorney General] Comey by memorandum that under the circumstances of [Attorney General] Ashcroft's medical condition and hospitalization, a "clear basis" existed for Comey to determine that "this is a case of 'absence or disability' of the Attorney General" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 508(a)."

"On Tuesday, March 10—the very day of Ashcroft's gallbladder surgery—Comey met with Cheney, Gonzales, Addington, Card, and other senior officials to give them his startling decision: he would not sign off on the legality of the surveillance program. White House officials were furious."

The day after the hospital confrontation, "the White House went ahead with the program anyway—without the Justice Department's certification. The line for the attorney general's signature remained blank. The White House was now operating a program that its own lawyers at the Justice Department had advised might not be legal." Instead, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez certified that the program authorization was legal.

"Comey prepared his letter of resignation. If the White House was going ahead with the program after all that had happened, there was no way he could stay on. He planned to turn in his letter of resignation the next day, that Friday, with at least a dozen other top officials or more—including [the FBI director]...Friday, he told Ayres, would be his last day."

Comey decides against resigning after talking to Bush and having him agree to changes. But the changes did not go far enough. "Imagine you're doing ten things one day, and the next day you're only doing eight of them," an unnamed official told reporter Barton Gellman. "That's basically what happened here."

"Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials...Nearly a dozen current and former officials, who were granted anonymity because of the classified nature of the program, discussed it with reporters for The New York Times because of their concerns about the operation's legality and oversight."

"The National Security Agency first began to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mail messages between the United States and Afghanistan months before President Bush officially authorized a broader version of the agency's special domestic collection program, according to current and former government officials....On Saturday, President Bush confirmed the existence of the security agency's domestic intelligence collection program and defended it, saying it had been instrumental in disrupting terrorist cells in America."

"A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say."

"The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said."

"As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the NSA has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said."

"In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the FBI in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.

FBI officials repeatedly complained to the spy agency, which was collecting much of the data by eavesdropping on some Americans' international communications and conducting computer searches of foreign-related phone and Internet traffic, that the unfiltered information was swamping investigators. Some FBI officials and prosecutors also thought the checks, which sometimes involved interviews by agents, were pointless intrusions on Americans' privacy."

"When Congress killed TIA's funding in 2003, it effectively ended research into privacy-protection technology. According to former officials associated with TIA, after the program was canceled, elements of it were transferred into the classified intelligence budget. But these did not include research on privacy protection."

"Ashcroft was informed about [the Program] after Bush had okayed it and was only then asked to attest that the initiative complied with the law. Ashcroft gave his after-the-fact certification of the program's legality on the same day he learned of it. He conducted no legal research to verify his conclusions."

"'It's the greatest favor anyone is ever going to do for you that you're not going to be read into this program,' Addington said. He smiled. 'This is the one they're going to come and try to chop everybody's heads off for.'"

"Ashcroft had told [Yoo] nothing, no background, no details of the program's operation—Yoo was just supposed to figure it out from the presidential order he had just been handed by the attorney general. The NSA program had been in operation for about three weeks. Only now was someone going to do the analysis to make sure that the administration wasn't breaking the law."

"The National Security Agency has secured the cooperation of large telecommunications companies, including AT&T, MCI and Sprint, in its efforts to eavesdrop without warrants on international calls by suspected terrorists, according to seven telecommunications executives...Technicians work with phone company officials to intercept communications pegged to a particular person or phone number. Telecommunications executives say MCI, AT&T and Sprint grant the access to their systems without warrants or court orders. Instead, they are cooperating on the basis of oral requests from senior government officials."

The Director of National Intelligence, who oversees the nation's intelligence agencies, admits in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden that on "at least one occasion" the FISA court found that “minimization procedures” used by the government while conducting surveillance under FISA was “unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”

"The surveillance experts at the National Security Agency won’t tell two powerful United States Senators how many Americans have had their communications picked up by the agency as part of its sweeping new counterterrorism powers. The reason: it would violate your privacy to say so.

That claim comes in a short letter sent Monday to civil libertarian Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall. The two members of the Senate’s intelligence oversight committee asked the NSA a simple question last month: under the broad powers granted in 2008′s expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, how many persons inside the United States have been spied upon by the NSA?"

"The National Security Agency developed a pilot program in the late 1990s that would have enabled it to gather and analyze huge amounts of communications data without running afoul of privacy laws. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, it shelved the project—not because it failed to work, but because of bureaucratic infighting and a sudden White House expansion of the agency's surveillance powers, according to several intelligence officials. The agency opted instead to adopt only one component of the program, which produced a far less capable and rigorous program. It remains the backbone of the NSA's warrantless surveillance efforts, tracking domestic and overseas communications from a vast databank of information, and monitoring selected calls."

"Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy."

Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California, issues an opinion in Al-Haramain v. Bush, finding FISA preempts the state secrets privilege. The Court rejects the expansive view of executive power promoted by the government, holding that the President's authorities under Article II of the Constitution do not give him the power to overrule FISA. Most importantly, the court rules that so long as the telecom plaintiffs have unclassified evidence tending to establish that they were surveilled, FISA's procedures take effect and the Bush Administration cannot unilaterally dismiss the telecom cases through invocation of the state secrets privilege.

The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Amnesty v. Clapper, a lawsuit filed by journalists, human rights workers, and lawyers, claiming that the surveillance conducted under the FISA Amendments Act violates their First and Fourth Amendment Rights. The case will decide if the ACLU’s challenge to the FISA Amendments Act—the law passed in the wake of the NSA warrantless wiretapping scandal—can go forward.

The Second Circuit rules the ACLU's lawsuit challenging the FISA Amendments Act can go forward. The government argues the case must be dismissed because the plaintiffs could not prove with certainty that their communications had been surveilled. But the court rules: "Because standing may be based on a reasonable fear of future injury and costs incurred to avoid that injury, and the plaintiffs have established that they have a reasonable fear of injury and have incurred costs to avoid it, we agree that they have standing."

ACLU argues that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008 is unconstitutional. The lawsuit brings together lawyers and other professionals arguing that the act creates undue burdens on their First and Fourth Amendment rights.

The American branch of Al-Haramain Foundation files a lawsuit asserting that the Bush administration had circumvented the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by authorizing warrantless wiretaps. The suit is based on a top secret document inadvertently given to attorneys for the Foundation. Although the contents of the document have never been publicly disclosed, Al-Haramain argues the document demonstrated the Bush Administration spied on the charity without a warrant.

"A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the National Security Agency’s program of surveillance without warrants was illegal, rejecting the Obama administration’s effort to keep shrouded in secrecy one of the most disputed counterterrorism policies of former President George W. Bush. In a 45-page opinion, Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled that the government had violated a 1978 federal statute requiring court approval for domestic surveillance when it intercepted phone calls of Al Haramain, a now-defunct Islamic charity in Oregon, and of two lawyers representing it in 2004. Declaring that the plaintiffs had been 'subjected to unlawful surveillance,' the judge said the government was liable to pay them damages."

Judge Vaughn Walker in the Northern District of California Federal Court issues his final order in the case of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Obama. The order grants the plaintiffs an award of $2.5 million in damages and attorneys' fees for the government's violation of FISA. The government appeals the order to the Ninth Circuit.

The Ninth Circuit dismisses the case on the grounds of sovereign immunity. The court rules that the only claim left in the case, a claim for money damages under FISA, could not be brought against the government itself, and instead could only be brought against government officials in their individual capacity. The court then rules that the claims made against the only individual defendant, FBI Director Mueller, were not sufficient and could not be amended.

The Ninth Circuit hears whether or not to dismiss the case under the state secrets privilege, which bars the presentation of certain limited evidence in court that could threaten national security. Judge Walker in the Northern District Court had already ruled in favor of EFF; however, the government appealed the decision.

"In December 2003, Goldsmith and Philbin met with Counsel to the Vice President Addington and White House Counsel Gonzales at the White House to express their growing concerns about the legal underpinnings of the program. Goldsmith said he told them that OLC was not sure the program could survive in its current form."

"On Sunday, March 7, 2004, Goldsmith and Philbin met again with [Legal Counsel to Vice President Cheney] Addington and [White House Counsel] Gonzales at the White House. According to Goldsmith, the White House officials informed Goldsmith and Philbin that they disagreed with their interpretation of Yoo's [legal] memoranda and on the need to change any of the NSA's intelligence activities under the PSP."

As the USA Today reports: "The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans—most of whom aren't suspected of any crime....the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews....'It's the largest database ever assembled in the world,' said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is 'to create a database of every call ever made' within the nation's borders, this person added."

On June 5, The Guardian released a top secret order of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) that ordered Verizon to provide “on an ongoing daily basis” all call records for any call “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls” and any call made “between the United States and abroad.” In plain language: the order gave the NSA a record of every Verizon customer’s call history -- every call made, the location of the phone, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other “identifying information” for the phone and call -- from April 25, 2013 (the date the order was issued) to July 19, 2013. The order does not require content or the name of any subscriber and is issued under 50 USC sec.1861, also known as section 215 of the Patriot Act.

The Washington Post and the Guardian reveal NSA Powerpoint slides that describe Prism. The Guardian reports that Prism provides direct access to the servers of major US Internet companies to collect emails, videos, images, and other material, and that "the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored communications as well as perform real-time collection on targeted users." 

In Jewel v. NSA (along with a companion case called Shubert v. Obama), the government's motion asks the court to hold the case in abeyance and that the parties file a status report by July 12, 2013. The motion essentially puts the case on "hold" and allows the government to reassess its positions.

The Guardian reveals the NSA's Boundless Informant tool, which "details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information [the NSA] collects from computer and telephone. networks."

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Robert Mueller testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee. Representative Chaffetz tackled the spying revelations head on by asking Director Mueller if metadata included geolocation and that if a database of metadata, including geolocation was housed by any government agency. Director Mueller responded that he was not aware of any database, that he doesn't know if metadata includes geolocation, and that he would get back to the committee with answers.

In a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, General Alexander was asked pointed questions by Senators, like Senator Jeff Merkley over the domestic spying. In the hearing, General Alexander committed to cooperating with any investigation, but otherwise provided few details. Senator Feinstein provided some of the most useful information by stating that the NSA purges the records collected from the domestic spying after five years. Unfortunately, little was revealed as chairwomen Senator Mikulski tried to steer the conversation away from the domestic spying throughout the hearing.

The Washington Post reveals: "Two of the four collection programs, one each for telephony and the Internet, process trillions of 'metadata' records for storage and analysis in systems called MAINWAY and MARINA, respectively...The bulk collection of telephone call records from Verizon Business Services...is one source of raw intelligence for MAINWAY. The other two types of collection, which operate on a much smaller scale, are aimed at content. One of them intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words to a system called ­NUCLEON. For Internet content, the most important source collection is the PRISM project."

In a June 2013 article, the Washington Post reveals that on this day, "the surveillance court made a fundamental shift in its approach to Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which permits the FBI to compel production of “business records” that are relevant to a particular terrorism investigation and to share those in some circumstances with the NSA. Henceforth, the court ruled, it would define the relevant business records as the entirety of a telephone company’s call database."

The Washinton Post reveals that beginning in 2002 major telecommunications companies entered into voluntary agreements to give "bulk metada;" like calling information, calling records, and times of calls; to the NSA. The voluntary agreements ended in May 2006, when, after the New York Times revealed the surveillance program, the companies requested court orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court instead of continuing the voluntary agreement scheme.

The Washinton Post reveals that the voluntary agreements signed in 2002, which had phone companies send the government "bulk metadata," ends. From now on, the companies wll receive court orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court mandating them to hand over "bulk metadata."

After the New York Times reveals warrantless wiretapping, an unknown phone company approaches the government to transition from voluntary agreements handing over "bulk metada" to court orders by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The orders are not granted by the court until May 2006.

In a hearing by the House Intelligence Committee it's revelaed that to search metadata information, NSA analysts do not need a court order for every search. NSA analysts are able to make their own determinations and search the database containing Americans calling information and other metadata.

The Guardian releases a full working draft of an NSA Inspector General report detailing the entire history of the NSA domestic spying program. Key details include the exact dates the spying began, extensive details of the type of information collected, and the interactions between key offcials in both the White House and agencies carrying out the spying.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on this day NSA Director General Mike Hayden began approaching telecommuncations companies to voluntarily give the government data. As the report states, "General Hayden stated that the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Invsetigation required their assistance 'to collect intelligence vital to the national security arising from the events of 11 September 2001,' and specifically requested that they 'provide survey, tasking and collection against international traffic, some of which terminates in the United States; provide aggregated call record information; and supply computer to computer data which can be used to determine the communicants.' Their assistance was 'needed to identify members of international terrorist cells in the United States and prevent future terrorist attacks against the United States.' These first letters also stated that the request was authorized by the President with the legal concurrence of the Attorney General, pursuant to Article II of the Constitution."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that by January 2007, around 3,000 people had been briefed about the warrantless wiretapping.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that it took almost a year for the NSA Inspector General to be notified about the program.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals: "On 14 September 2001...General Hayden approved the targeting of terrorist-associated foreign telephone numbers on communication links between the US and foreign countries where terrorists were known to be operating. Only specified, pre-approved numbers were allowed to be tasked for collection against US-originating links."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that according to the Deputy General Counsel of the NSA, "General Hayden determined by 26 September that any Afghan telephone number in contact with a US telephone number on or after 26 September was presumed to be of foreign intelligence value and could be disseminated to the FBI."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that after NSA Director General Hayden briefed the Chairmen and Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on his targeting of domestic calling information, he later informed the Chairmen and Ranking Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by telephone.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that the NSA resurfaced a 1999 plan to "perform contact chaining on metadata it had collected." The report explains: "Analysts would chain through masked US telephone numbers to discover foreign connections to those numbers, without specifying the US number involved." Iin December 1999, th e DOJ had declared this type of searching illegal under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) when applied to metadata belonging to US persons becuase it was considered "electronic surveillance" under FISA.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that neither the Department of Justice, the National Security, or the President's lawyers drafted the initial authorization to spy on Americans. The counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, David Addington, drafted the first authorization sometime after the September 11 attacks and before mid-October.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals: "[NSA Director] General Hayden said he was 'surprised with a small 's'' when the Authorization was signed on 4 October 2001, and that it only changed the location from which NSA could collect communications."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that the authorization allowed NSA to spy on four types of data: "1) telephony content, 2) Internet content, 3) telephony metadata, 4) Internet metadata." According to the NSA it—wrongly—thought the authorization allowed for the collection of solely domestic US communications. The NSA "retain[ed], process[ed], analyze[d], and disseminate[d] intelligence from the" four types of data."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on October 5, a day after NSA Director General Hayden recieved the signed Presidential Authorization and handed it to the NSA General Counsel, the General Counsel told General Hayden that he believed the program was legal.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals: "On Saturday and Sunday, 6 and 7 October, small groups of operational personnel were called at home and asked to report to work for special PSP [President's Surveillance Program] clearance briefings."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on Monday, October 8, NSA Director General Hayden briefed the analysts, programmers, and mathematicians that had been selected to implement the program. Some of these employees include the ones responsible for managing relationships with private sector companies. Soon after this meeting, the employees would contact their contacts in the private sector companies to discuss the President's authorization and the company's potential cooperation with the program.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that within one week of the start of the program approximately 90 NSA employees knew about the program.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals, "On 11 October 2001, the Associate General Counsel for Operations and the NSA Deputy General Counsel were cleared for the Program and agreed with the NSA General Counsel's determination that the Authorization was legal."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that "private sector partners" started sending telephony and Internet metadata to NSA as early as November 2001.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that the companies complied shortly after NSA Director General Hayden asked them to hand over data. In mid to late October, they began to send telephony and Internet content to NSA.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that the NSA consolidated the program into the the Advanced Analysis Division (AAD). The AAD was divided into three teams: internet metadata, telephony metadata, and content.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that by the end of 2003, "four FBI integres adn two CIA integrees" were moved to the NSA to "improve collaborative analytic efforts."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals, "At a 8 December 2003 meeting with the Department of Justic Associate Deputy Attorney General to discuss collection of metadata and an upcoming NSA Office of the Inspector General compliance audit, NSA's Inspector General and Deputy General Counsel request to see the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel legal opinion. The Counsel to the Vice President, who unexpectedly attended the meeting, denied the request and said that any request to see the opinion had to come directly from General Hayden"

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that two years after the program began the NSA Inspector General, General Counsel, and Deputy General Counsel had yet to see the full text of the original legal opinion justifying the spying.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals, "On 04 May 2004, NSA, at the request fo the OLC Assistant Attorney General, provided comments on the OLC's draft opinion on the Legality of the PSP." The draft opinion was submitted on May 6, 2004.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals, "By June 2002, over 500 people had been cleared, including two additional members of Congress, Senator Daniel Inouye and former Senator Theodore Stevens, as well as FISC Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that FISC Chief Judge Kollar-Kotelly was briefed on the program for a second time on August 12 2002. At this second visit, the chief judge of the court that is supposed to oversee foreign intelligence was finally allowed to see the President's authorization. She was not able to take a copy or talk to her fellow judges about the matter.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that it was not until after the the New York Times revealed the warrantless wiretapping program did General Alexander, Director of NSA, feel compelled to brief the all members of the secret court that is supposed to oversee foreign surveillance, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on this day Judge Bates, then a new judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, was briefed on the program as he missed the January 9, 2006 briefing by General Alexander.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on this day Judge Scullin was briefed on the program as he missed the January 9, 2006 briefing by General Alexander.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on this day the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel wrote another opinion on the program. This opinion was written after the May 6, 2004 opinion expressing one aspect of the program illegal.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on March 19, President Bush rescinded the authority to collect bulk Internet metadata. The NSA was given on week to stop the collection and block access to previously retained data. The stop marked a transition from the NSA relying on the Presidential authorization to relying on a court order from the secret surveillance court that supposed to oversee foreign surveillance, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on this day the Department of Justice "directed NSA representatives from the Office of the General Counsel and the Signals Intelligence Directorate to find a legal basis using a [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] order, to recreate NSA's...authority to collect bulk Internet metadata."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that the Chief Judge of the secret surveillance court overseeing foreign spying was briefed with a law clerk on the program because the Chief Judge was "researching the impact of using the program-derived information in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications."

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on this day the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court signed the first order to collect bulk Internet metadata. This resumes the collection of bulk Internet metadata, which stopped on March 26, 2004 after President Bush did not issue a new authorization.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on this day the National Security Agency General Counsel pitched the idea of updating the spying law, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, to the Acting Assistant Attorney General to allow for dragnet spying of phone call and email content.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) accepted a new legal theory that the NSA could obtain information from a "facility" defined as the "gateway or cable head foreign targets used for communications." The FISC signed two separate orders on this day. One okayed the spying for foreign content, but did not okay the spying for domestic content.

The leaked NSA Inspector General report detailing the history of the domestic spying program reveals that on this day the Chief of NSA Signals Intelligence Directorate Office of Oversight and Compliance Briefed on Program.

Shortly after the Supreme Court dismissed ACLU's original lawsuit against the spying, Clapper v. Amnesty International USA, in a 5-4 decision, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court's dismissal of CCR v. Obama in a short opinion.

The Supreme Court handed down a decicsion 5-4 dismissing the ACLU's Clapper v. Amnesty International. The court did not even reach discussion of the spying as it ruled the plaintiffs did not have the "standing" to sue becuase they could not prove that the harms faced by the plaintiffs were "certainly impending" and that plaintiffs were being spied on.

EFF continues its fight against the unconstitutional NSA spying in light of the new leaks by initiating another lawsuit. On June 16, nineteen organizations including Unitarian church groups, gun ownership advocates, and a broad coalition of membership and political advocacy organizations represented by EFF filed suit against the National Security Agency today for violating their First Amendment right of association by illegally collecting their call records.

As the ACLU notes: "The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union today filed a constitutional challenge to a surveillance program under which the National Security Agency vacuums up information about every phone call placed within, from, or to the United States. The lawsuit argues that the program violates the First Amendment rights of free speech and association as well as the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment. The complaint also charges that the dragnet program exceeds the authority that Congress provided through the Patriot Act." The ACLU represents itself in the manner as it is a customer of Verizon.

A federal judge rejected the U.S. government's latest attempt to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) long-running challenge to the government's illegal dragnet surveillance programs, Jewel v. NSA. The ruling means the allegations at the heart of the Jewel case move forward under the supervision of a public federal court. In the ruling, Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California federal court agreed with EFF that the very subject matter of the lawsuit is not a state secret, and any properly classified details can be litigated under the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). As Judge White wrote in the decision, "Congress intended for FISA to displace the common law rules such as the state secrets privilege with regard to matter within FISA's purview." While the court allowed the constitutional questions to go forward, it also dismissed some of the statutory claims.

An unknown company called "Company E" is asked to provide call detail records in support of security for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. The CEO originally agreed, but the General Counsel of the company decided not to support NSA request.

NSA approaches unknown Internet provider "Company D" to discuss company support for NSA's program. Company D "provided support, but it was minimal."

Internet provider Company F is asked to support NSA's program. After requesting a letter from the Attorney General certifying the legality of the program, Company F declined to participate becuase of liability concerns.

The NSA approached "private sector Company G" to cooperate with NSA program. Company G wanted to seek the opinion of outside counsel, but NSA decided that the disclosure outweighed what the company would've provided. NSA decides to not pursue the company to cooperate.

NSA Director General Michael Hayden sends the first letters to Companies A, B, and C requesting assistance "to collect intelligence vital to the national security arising from the events of 11 September 2001," and specifically requested the companies "provide survey, tasking and collection against international traffic, some of which terminates in the United States; provide aggregated call record information; and supply computer to computer data which can be used to determined the communicants."

An unkown "private sector" Company E is sent its first letter by the NSA requesting data.

An unkonwn Internet provider, Company D, recieves its first letter to cooperate with the program.

Company C requests opinion on the legality of the program. Three months later, on August 8, they receive a letter from the Attorney General stating that the NSA's demands were lawful.

After requesting a letter in June, Company C finally receives a letter from the Attorney General stating that the NSA's demands were "a lawful exercise of authorities assigned to the President under Article II of the Constitution."

The President amends his March 11, 2004 authorization after discontinuing the bulk collection of Internet metadata.

Updated letters are sent to companies stating "that the most recent authorization had been approved for form adn legality by the Counsel to the President, not the Attorney General as with previous authorizations."

The Attorney General "sent letters to Companies A, B, and C, certifying under 18 USC 2511(2)(a)(ii)(B) that 'no warrant or court order was or is required by law for the assistance, that all statutory requirements have been met, and that the assistance has been and is required.'."

The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) sends letters to Companies A, B, and C encouraging them to cotinue sending data.

The House Judiciary Committee's hearing on the government's unconstitutional spying provided the Obama Administration with a marvelous opportunity to answer Congress’s questions about abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, the laws being used by the government to order phone companies provide the calling information from every American's calling information. Representatives from both parties grilled the government’s witnesses about the spying, the lack of transparency, the violation of the law, and the violation of the Fourth Amendment. Sadly, the witnesses were caught off guard, unable to answer questions, and hid behind secrecy.

The Senate Judiciary on the Committee holds a hearing on the privacy impact of the NSA's abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The Office of the Director of the National Intelligence (ODNI) releases three documents right before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the NSA spying. The documents include two reports previously released to Congress about the spying and the "Primary Order," that was originally attached to the released Top Secret Verizon Order.

"On 17 May 2006, NSA Director Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander provided classified briefings to the full committee of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the adminsistration's "controversial domestic eavesdropping program."

The Washington Post published two important stories, based on perhaps the most signficant documents yet leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Separately, the stories tell of an agency in charge of policing itself, leading to thousands of violations of Americans’ privacy per year, and a secret court with no power to stop them.

The administration released the October 2011 FISA Court decision the EFF sought via a FOIA lawsuit. The decision lays out extensive abuses by the NSA, including the fact that part of the spying programs violated both the statute and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. In addition to the FISA Court release, the administration also unveiled a new transparency website. The website contains numerous newly declassified documents concerning the NSA spying programs.

The Post presents a second article in which the Chief Judge of the FISA Court admits that the court is unable to act as a watchdog or stop the NSA's abuses: “The FISC is forced to rely upon the accuracy of the information that is provided to the Court,” its chief, US District Judge Reggie B. Walton, said in a written statement. “The FISC does not have the capacity to investigate issues of noncompliance."  Civil liberties and privacy advocates have long said that the FISA Court is a rubber stamp when it comes to the spying, but this is worse—this is the Court admitting that it cannot conduct the oversight the President and others have claimed it is doing. So much for claims by officials from the White House (video), NSA, DOJ, and Intelligence Committee members of Congress that the FISA Court is another strong pillar of oversight.

The Administration released a White Paper on Friday that summarized its claimed legal basis for the bulk collection of telephony metadata, also known as the Associational Tracking Program under section 215 of the Patriot Act, codified as 50 U.S.C. section 1861. Among other topics, the White Paper uses strained legal reasoning to create a new definition of "relevance" and tries to justify the use of prospective orders for records not yet created.

The Wall Street Journal delves into further detail about the NSA's collection of information directly from the fiberoptic network of telecommunications companies and Internet service provides revealing that, "the NSA, in conjunction with telecommunications companies, has built a system that can reach deep into the US Internet backbone and cover 75% of traffic in the country, including not only metadata but the content of online communications."

In response to EFF's Section 215 FOIA request, the government releases over seven hundred documents consisting of legal opinions, orders, declarations, and NSA documents concerning the government's use of Section 215 to conduct mass spying.

The government relases the FISA Court's legal justufication for approving the mass spying. This appears to be the fist time the FISA Court has released its legal analysis relating to mass spying conducted Section 215.

As we relay in a blog post: "The National Security Agency (NSA) finally admits to tracking the cell phone location of Americans. For two years, in 2010 and 2011, the spy agency ran an “experiment” pilot project in which they wanted to test how location information would flow into their massive databases containing other information on Americans."

In a report by the Guardian, the newspaper details how the NSA has tried to deanonymize the Tor network. Bruce Schneier lays out further details in a separate article, while also posting the original NSA Power Point slide.

The FISA Court stops the searching of the calling records information collected using Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The NSA must seek court approval to query the metadata on a case-by-case basis, "except where necessary to protect against an imminent threat to human life."

March 2, 2009: Court issued an Order requiring NSA to seek Court approval to query the BR metadata on a case-by-case basis, 

The NSA completes it's End to End review of the Section 215 telephony metadata program. The report details extensive violations of the FISA Court's orders, the law, and the Constitution.

Starting this day, the FISA Court orders the NSA to provide every instance the NSA shared telephony metadata collected using Section 215 outside of the NSA, every instance a US person's information was sent, and every instance when a non-US person's information was shared.

NSA finally adds the ability to audit when technical personnel, developers, coders, and other egineers are accessing the data.

The FISA Court stops its case-by-case approval of searches by the NSA (which begun with its August 2009 Primary Order) and allows NSA to search the data without FISA Court approval.

As the Washington Post reports: "The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials."

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence holds a hearing titled, "Potential Changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)."

The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on Senator Franken's bill addressing transparency issues around the NSA spying. Senator Franken's bill, The Surveillance Transparency Act of 2013, seeks to introduce new reporting requirements about the government's use of the authorities in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and allows companies to report on orders they receive.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reveal that the CIA has been collecting international money transfers in bulk using Setion 215 of the Patriot Act.

The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on the NSA spying titled, "Continued Oversight of US Government Surveillance Authorities."

The opinions released by the Director of National Intelligence describe the NSA's program collecting Americans' internet communications. The documents tell a story we've heard before: the government, through one-sided argument in a secret court, obtained unconstitutional orders to collect vast amounts of information about millions of innocent Americans.

As the Huffington Post reports: "The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches, according to a top-secret NSA document. The document, provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, identifies six targets, all Muslims, as “exemplars” of how “personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target's credibility, reputation and authority."

The Guardian reports: "Australia's surveillance agency offered to share information collected about ordinary Australian citizens with its major intelligence partners, according to a secret 2008 document leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden. The document shows the partners discussing whether or not to share "medical, legal or religious information", and increases concern that the agency could be operating outside its legal mandate, according to the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC."

As Reuters reports: "The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday urged a federal judge to halt a U.S. spy agency's sweeping collection of telephone data, arguing that the program goes beyond what Congress authorized and violates the constitutional rights of Americans."

The Supreme Court of the United States denies to hear EPIC's emergency petition to hear arguments about the NSA's spying activities.

EPIC files an extra-ordinary Writ of Mandamus to the Supreme Court asking the court to hear arguments about the recently disclosed NSA spying.

The government files a reply to EPIC's petition to the Supreme Court to hear arguments about the NSA's spying activities.

EPIC files a reply to the Government's initial response to EPIC's petition to the Supreme Court to hear arguments about the NSA spying.

As Reuters reports: "A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans."

As Reuters reports: "A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA's Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007. The IRS is among two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency."

The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on the ongoing leaks about the NSA's spying.

As the Guardian reports: "British spy agency collects and stores vast quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them with NSA, latest documents from Edward Snowden reveal."

As the Washington Post reports: "In months of private talks, the team of lawyers from the FBI and the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security demanded that the company maintain what amounted to an internal corporate cell of American citizens with government clearances. Among their jobs, documents show, was ensuring that surveillance requests got fulfilled quickly and confidentially."

As the Guardian reports: "Microsoft has collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the Guardian."

As the Guardian reports: "The National Security Agency has a secret backdoor into its vast databases under a legal authority enabling it to search for US citizens' email and phone calls without a warrant, according to a top-secret document passed to the Guardian by Edward Snowden."

As the Wall Street Journal reports: "National Security Agency officers on several occasions have channeled their agency’s enormous eavesdropping power to spy on love interests, U.S. officials said. The practice isn’t frequent — one official estimated a handful of cases in the last decade — but it’s common enough to garner its own spycraft label: LOVEINT."

As the Washington Post reports: "The National Security Agency is gathering nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cellphones around the world, according to top-secret documents and interviews with US intelligence officials, enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals—and map their relationships—in ways that would have been previously unimaginable."

The New York Times, ProPublica, and the Guardian reveal that NSA spied on online video game users. The NSA's activities include Xbox users, and online video games like World of Warcraft.

As EFF Deeplinks reports: "According to documents just published by the Washington Post, the NSA is using this to “enable remote exploitation” (hacking into people’s computers)—an act aided by the ability to uniquely identify individuals on the Internet."

As part of a series of articles, Der Spiegel reports on an NSA catalogue documenting its spying tools, provides a thorough overview of the devices, and a profile of the NSA's leading hacking unit called the Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO).

The Senate Judiciary Committee holds a hearing titled, "Hearing on the Report of the President's Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies."

Over a dozen orders by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret court overseeing the spying, is released. In a noteworthy find, the Wall Street Journal reports that the documents reveal the NSA "tipped" the FBI with information the NSA collected over 1,000 times.

The President gives a speech temporally ending the Section 215 program collecting all Americans' calling records and asks a panel led by John Podesta to offer alternatives to the program. The alternatives are due by the next renewal of the Section 215 program, which is on or about March 28. The President releases a transcript of his remarks, a "fact sheet," and a new Presidential Policy Directive on Signals Intelligence Activities.

CBC's original article can be found here, a copy of the presentation can be found here; and Bruce Schneier's take can be found here.

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary holds a hearing titled, "The Report of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) on Reforms to the Section 215 Telephone Records Program and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." The hearing is intended to go over the report released by the PCLOB; which, among other things, recommended the government end the program using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect every single Americans' calling records.

According to the Guardian, the GCHQ with aid from the US National Security Agency "intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal."

As the Guardian reports, General Alexander discussed the Section 215 program collecting all Americans' calling records at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

NBC publishes Snowden documents showing how GCHQ has developed tools that include "releasing computer viruses, spying on journalists and diplomats, jamming phones and computers, and using sex to lure targets into 'honey traps'" in order to target nations, hackers, terror groups, suspected criminals and arms dealers.

The New York Times publishes an article describing two leaked FISA court orders — known as the Raw Take order and the Large Content FISA order — which weakened restrictions on sharing private information about Americans. According to the article "the files help explain how the court evolved from its original task — approving wiretap requests — to engaging in complex analysis of the law to justify activities like the bulk collection of data about Americans’ emails and phone calls."

The Intercept publishes leaked documents which contain details about surveillance technology the NSA developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware. According to the article, "the clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks."

The Guardian quotes the Department of Defense's deputy Inspector General, in charge of Intelligence and Special Program Assessments: “he 'can’t quantify' the amount of oversight he performs on the NSA.'The bulk of that is in reviews that we have done, and in the collaborative work that we have done with the NSA IG,' Thomas said. 'From my own personal knowledge, those programs, in and of themselves, I was not personally aware.'”

The Washington Post reports: “The National Security Agency has built a surveillance system capable of recording “100% percent” of a foreign country’s telephone calls, enabling the agency to rewind and review conversations as long as a month after they take place, according to people with direct knowledge of the effort and documents supplied by former contractor Edward Snowden.”

The Intercept reports: “Across the world, people who work as system administrators keep computer networks in order – and this has turned them into unwitting targets of the National Security Agency for simply doing their jobs. According to a secret document provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the agency tracks down the private email and Facebook accounts of system administrators (or sys admins, as they are often called), before hacking their computers to gain access to the networks they control.”

The Times reports that documents disclosed by Edward Snowden show: "The agency pried its way into the servers in Huawei’s sealed headquarters in Shenzhen, China’s industrial heart. . . One of the goals of the operation, code-named 'Shotgiant,' was to find any links between Huawei and the People’s Liberation Army, one 2010 document made clear. But the plans went further: to exploit Huawei’s technology so that when the company sold equipment to other countries — including both allies and nations that avoid buying American products — the N.S.A. could roam through their computer and telephone networks to conduct surveillance and, if ordered by the president, offensive cyberoperations."

President Obama's statement indicates that, after considering different options to address bulk collection pursuant to his January 17th speech, he has decided that the government should no longer engage in bulk collection. Instead: "The government w[ill] obtain the data pursuant to individual orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) approving the use of specific numbers for such queries, if a judge agrees based on national security concerns. Legislation will be needed to permit the government to obtain this information with the speed and in the manner that will be required to make this approach workable." He indicates that he is working with members of Congress to present legislation, but since it will not be in place by the March 28th expiration of current FISC orders allowing bulk collection, he has "directed the Department of Justice to seek a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program," including modifications he directed in January.

Following President Obama's official statement on his plans to change Section 215 bulk metadata collection, Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issue a joint statement in which they state: "Consistent with both the President’s direction, and with prior declassification decisions, in light of the significant and continuing public interest in the telephony metadata collection program, DNI Clapper declassified the fact that the United States filed an application with the FISC to reauthorize the existing program as previously modified for 90 days, and that today the FISC issued an order approving the government’s application. The order issued today expires on June 20, 2014. The Administration is undertaking a declassification review of this most recent court order. When the review is complete the ODNI will post the documents to its website and icontherecord.tumblr.com."

Der Spiegel reports that documents disclosed by Edward Snowden "show that Britain's GCHQ intelligence service infiltrated German Internet firms and America's NSA obtained a court order to spy on Germany and collected information about the chancellor in a special database." The article also notes that German Federal Public Prosecutor Harald Range is investigating "whether the agency will move forward with legal proceedings" against the NSA or GCHQ.

Director of National Intelligence Clapper confirms that the NSA has searched the contents of communications gathered under Section 702. The NSA has used Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to justify mass collection of emails and phone calls. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-Colo) noted in a published statement: "It is now clear to the public that the list of ongoing intrusive surveillance practices by the NSA includes not only bulk collection of Americans' phone records, but also warrantless searches of the content of Americans' personal communications,"

The NSA's internal Civil Liberties and Privacy Office issues a "comprehensive description of NSA's Section 702 activities. The report also documents current privacy and civil liberties protections." The document provides little, if any, new information.

The Interecept reports: "[A]ccording to a top-secret document in the archive of material provided to The Intercept by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, GCHQ secretly coveted the NSA’s vast troves of private communications and sought “unsupervised access” to its data as recently as last year – essentially begging to feast at the NSA’s table while insisting that it only nibbles on the occasional crumb."

The Director of National Intelligence released 10 previously classified declarations from several different lawsuits challenging NSA surveillance, both under Bush's "Terrorist Surveillance Program" and later under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authority. The documents, from Director of National Intelligence, National Security Agency, and Department of Justice officials, include declarations related to EFF's Jewel v. NSA, First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. NSA , and Hepting v. AT&T cases.

According to the Intercept, a new leak shows that "the National Security Agency is secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation on the island nation of the Bahamas."

In preparing to publish his book about Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency surveillance programs, journalist Glenn Greenwald publishes over 100 pages of leaked documents related to NSA surveillance. Read our discussion.

A leaked NSA document published by The Intercept contains an internal NSA interview with an official from the SIGINT Operations Group in NSA’s Foreign Affairs Directorate. Titled “What Are We After with Our Third Party Relationships? — And What Do They Want from Us, Generally Speaking?”, the discussion explores the NSA’s cooperative relationship with its surveillance partners. Upon being asked whether political shifts within those nations affect the NSA’s relationships, the SIGINT official explains why such changes generally have no effect: because only a handful of military officials in those countries are aware of the spying activities. Few, if any, elected leaders have any knowledge of the surveillance.

As Der Spiegel reports, "America's National Security Agency (NSA) is apparently spying on Germany more than previously believed. Secret documents from the US intelligence service, which have been viewed by SPIEGEL journalists, reveal that the NSA systematically monitors and stores a large share of the country's telephone and Internet connection data."

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on leaks revealing four facilities in Australia that contribute to a key American intelligence collection program.

O Globo reveals the extent of NSA spying in countries like Columbia, Brazil, and Mexico. In particular, the documents reveal the NSA's spying on the countries to learn about narcotics trafficking and the movements of the Revolutionary Forces of Columbia (FARC).

Der Spiegel explores the extent of NSA's partnership with Germany and the up to 500 million data connections provided by NSA to Germany.

As the Guardian reports: "The US government has paid at least £100m to the UK spy agency GCHQ over the last three years to secure access to and influence over Britain's intelligence gathering programs."

NBC publishes documents showing how GCHQ targeted the hacktivist groups Anonymous and LulzSec with DDOS attacks. According to the article, "The blunt instrument the spy unit used to target hackers, however, also interrupted the web communications of political dissidents who did not engage in any illegal hacking. It may also have shut down websites with no connection to Anonymous."

As the Guardian reports: "Some of the world's leading telecoms firms, including BT and Vodafone, are secretly collaborating with Britain's spy agency GCHQ, and are passing on details of their customers' phone calls, email messages and Facebook entries."

As Epoca reports: "The paper obtained by EPOCA reveals how the US spied on eight members of the UN Security Council, among them at least one permanent (France) and three non-permanent (Brazil, Japan and Mexico), during the negotiations. All these nations are considered “allied”. Through the actions of the NSA, the US government found out how they would vote. This gave Washington an advantage position in the discussions with the remaining members of the Security Council. The document, entitled “Quiet Success”, celebrates the success of the enterprise. It should be made public only in the year 2035."

As Der Spiegel reports: "The United States intelligence agency was so interested, in fact, that it hacked into Al Jazeera's internal communications system, according to documents from former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden that have been seen by Spiegel."

As Fantastico reports, "One of the prime targets of American spies in Brazil is far away from the center of power–out at sea, deep beneath the waves. Brazilian oil. The internal computer network of Petrobras, the Brazilian oil giant partly owned by the state, has been under surveillance by the NSA, the National Security Agency of the United States."

As the Guardian reports, "The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens."

A leaked NSA document shows how an internal advice columnist counsels an NSA employee who is concerned about being spied on by his or her supervisor.

As Der Spiegel reports, "secret documents reveal that the main NSA financial database Tracfin, which collects the "Follow the Money" surveillance results on bank transfers, credit card transactions and money transfers, already had 180 million datasets by 2011. The corresponding figure in 2008 was merely 20 million. According to these documents, most Tracfin data is stored for five years."

The New York Times reports that documents disclosed by Edward Snowden show that the NSA harvests "huge numbers of images of people from communications that it intercepts through its global surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition programs..." The Times states that the NSA "intercepts “millions of images per day” — including about 55,000 “facial recognition quality images," which come from spy satellites, images attached to emails, and other sources. 

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence states that "NSA has now explained that they have found one email inquiry by Edward Snowden to the Office of General Counsel asking for an explanation of some material that was in a training course he had just completed. The e-mail did not raise allegations or concerns about wrongdoing or abuse, but posed a legal question that the Office of General Counsel addressed." The email does raise a legal question about spying authority, and it is unclear whether there was any further conversation after the initial communication.

Leaked documents show that a program known as RAMPART-A depends on the cooperation of far more foreign governments than previously known. The Intercept reports: "The NSA documents state that under RAMPART-A, foreign partners "'provide access to cables and host U.S. equipment.'" The Intercept notes that the documents show the program "cost U.S. taxpayers about $170 million between 2011 and 2013."

Der Spiegel reports ,"Cooperation between Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, and America's NSA is deeper than previously believed. German agents appear to have crossed into constitutionally questionable territory."

The Washington Post reports that a classified 2010 FISA Court order and other documents show that "[v]irtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency." The report notes that the court order, based on Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act, "lists 193 countries that would be of valid interest for U.S. intelligence. The certification also permitted the agency to gather intelligence about entities including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency."

In March, Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issued a joint statement on renewal of collection under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. On the expiration of that 90 day order, the AG and DNI again issue a statement, this time praising the reform efforts privacy advocates, including EFF, have called gutted and weak: "the bill’s significant reforms would provide the public greater confidence in our programs and the checks and balances in the system, while ensuring our intelligence and law enforcement professionals have the authorities they need to protect the Nation.  The Administration strongly supports the USA FREEDOM Act.  We urge the Senate to swiftly consider it, and remain ready to work with Congress to clarify that the bill prohibits bulk collection as noted above, as necessary." However, the statement notes: " Given that legislation has not yet been enacted, and given the importance of maintaining the capabilities of the Section 215 telephony metadata program, the government has sought a 90-day reauthorization of the existing program, as modified by the changes the President announced earlier this year. "

A press release from Senator Ron Wyden states: "The Office of the Director of National Intelligence [ODNI] has now responded to my longstanding question regarding warrantless searches for Americans’ emails and other communications..." The ODNI's response states that in 2013, the NSA "approved 198 U.S. person identifiers for querying the content of communications" and "conducted approximately 9,500 queries" of 702 metadata using U.S. person identifiers. The CIA "conducted fewer than 1900 queries of Section 702 acquired communications," and the FBI could not provide a number because it does not track how many queries it makes using U.S. person identifiers. Notably, the ODNI's response defends the legality of the collection and searching of such information, and denies that it operates as a backdoor into communications that should be protected by the Fourth Amendment.

The Intercept publishes the results of a three month investigation based on documents provided by Edward Snowden and interviews with over a dozen former and current intelligent officials. The article emphasizes: "The five [Muslim] Americans whose email accounts were monitored by the NSA and FBI have all led highly public, outwardly exemplary lives. All five vehemently deny any involvement in terrorism or espionage, and none advocates violent jihad or is known to have been implicated in any crime, despite years of intense scrutiny by the government and the press. Some have even climbed the ranks of the U.S. national security and foreign policy establishments." The article also notes that "It is impossible to know why their emails were monitored, or the extent of the surveillance. It is also unclear under what legal authority it was conducted, whether the men were formally targeted under FISA warrants, and what, if anything, authorities found that permitted them to continue spying on the men for prolonged periods of time. But the five individuals share one thing in common: Like many if not most of the people listed in the NSA spreadsheet, they are of Muslim heritage."

The first order to collect Americans' calling records is approved by the FISA Court.

The FISA Court renews an order to collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board releases a report on how the NSA has interpreted Section 702 to conduct surveillance. The Board is optimistic about Section 702, noting: "Operation of the Section 702 program has been subject to judicial oversight and extensive internal supervision, and the Board has found no evidence of intentional abuse." Using flawed constitutional analysis,  the review board concludes that "the core of [the] program" is constitutional. While the Board acknowledges that "certain aspects of the program’s implementation raise privacy concerns," and may push the program "across the threshold of unreasonableness", the Board recommends only minimal procedural changes to the program.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

The FISA Court approves an order renewing the NSA's mass telephone records collection program.

On August 6, 2014, the Department of Justice released "38 documents relating to the now-discontinued NSA program to collect bulk electronic communications metadata pursuant to Section 402 of the FISA," the "Pen Register/Trap and Trace" (PRTT) program. The documents were "also responsive to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Electronic Privacy Information Center." Some of the documents had been previously released. 

The New York Times publishes a chart demonstrating how the government has interpreted Executive Order 12333, and how it compares to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, based on interviews with over a dozen current and former officials and documents.

The Intercept publishes slides and memos that describe the NSA's ICREACH, a system that enables sharing of metadata by “provid[ing] analysts with the ability to perform a one-stop search of information from a wide variety of separate databases.” he documents describe ICREACH as a “one-stop shopping tool for consolidated communications metadata analytic needs.” ICREACH brings together various databases with a single search query, allowing analysts to search literally billions of records. The tool allows sharing of “more than 30 different kinds of metadata on emails, phone calls, faxes, internet chats, and text messages, as well as location information collected from cellphones.” It is intended to include data from Five Eyes partners as well. While the program shares data obtained under Executive Order 12333, it includes data from U.S. persons.

The Intercept reports that in 2012 and early 2013, New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau planned to implement a mass metadata surveillance system called "Speargun," that "involved the covert installation of 'cable access' equipment, which appears to refer to surveillance of the country’s main undersea cable link." According to the report, "'metadata probes' were to be inserted into those cables," and the program would be legal under the surveillance law passed by the New Zealand Parliament in August of 2013. The law was passed with assurances that it would provide oversight, but documents show that it was considered necessary for completion of Speargun.

Der Spiegel and the Intercept collaboratively publish documents that show how the NSA and GCHQ planned to map and penetrate global networks. According to the Intercept, "Treasure Map is a vast NSA campaign to map the global internet. The program doesn’t just seek to chart data flows in large traffic channels, such as telecommunications cables. Rather, it seeks to identify and locate every single device that is connected to the internet somewhere in the world—every smartphone, tablet, and computer—'anywhere, all the time,' according to NSA documents." The report from Der Spiegel emphasizes that Five Eyes agencies claim to have access to Deutsche Telekom AG and Netcologne, and that the documents could even show "that the NSA and its partner agencies are perhaps not only able to monitor the networks of these companies and the data that travels through them, but also the end devices of their customers."

The Intercept reveals the NSA program Sentry Eagle, a blanket term for a number of different operations described as NSA core secrets.

The documents show that the NSA "has had agents in China, Germany, and South Korea working on programs that use “physical subversion” to infiltrate and compromise networks and devices." They reveal an"array of clandestine activities in the real world by NSA agents working with their colleagues at the CIA, FBI, and Pentagon," including field activities and supply-chain operations "that focus on modifying equipment in a target’s supply chain." The documents also contain "a fleeting reference to the NSA infiltrating clandestine agents into 'commercial entities,'" which The Intercept speculates could mean "employees—ones who are secretly working for the NSA without anyone else being aware" at American technology companies. The documents also reveal that the NSA has relationships with foreign companies that allow the agency to work with those companies to build backdoors for the NSA to conduct surveillance. Finally, the description sheet for Project Raven solidifies concerns about the NSA"s interference with encryption. It "states the NSA 'works with specific U.S. commercial entities…to modify U.S manufactured encryption systems to make them exploitable...”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence releases a report entitled "Safeguarding the Personal Information of all People: a Status Report on the Development and Implementation of Procedures Under Presidential Policy Directive 28" (PPD-28). PPD-28 was issued by President Obama in conjunction with his January 17th speech on surveillance reform and is meant to "guide why, whether, when, and how the United States conducts signals intelligence activities for authorized foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes." The 11 page report mainly outlines "appropriate protections for personal information" collected through signals intelligence. The protections outlined in the report are mainly based on Executive Order 12333.

Executive Order 12333 requires the NSA to report intelligence activities they have reason to believe may be unlawful or contrary to Executive Order or Presidential Directive to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board. The newly released NSA oversight reports span over a decade and include hundreds of pages of combined annual reports for 2007-2010, and quarterly reports from 2001-2013. The NSA released the reports in response to Freedom of Information Act litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union. They document over a decade of accidental over-collection and intentional misuse of intelligence databases, including times when the systems are misused to target family members or partners.

Der Spiegel releases a large trove of documents that "reveal the encryption programs the NSA has succeeded in cracking, but, importantly, also the ones that are still likely to be secure. Although the documents are around two years old, experts consider it unlikely the agency's digital spies have made much progress in cracking these technologies." The documents suggest that NSA efforts to decrypt "Pretty Good Privacy [PGP], which is still the most common encryption program for emails and documents in use today" remain unsuccessful. Similarly, off-the-record [OTR] chatting "at least sometimes makes communications impossible to read for the NSA." The documents reveal that Virtual Private Networks (VPN), which were thought to provide significant privacy, are much more exploitable than previously thought. Jake Appelbaum and Laura Poitras discuss the documents during a presentation at Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg.

The Guardian reports that during a test exercise of direct taps on the fiber-optic cables done by GCHQ in November 2008, " journalists’ communications were among 70,000 emails harvested in the space of less than 10 minutes. . ." While the article notes that there is no indication that journalists were purposefully targeted, it notes that GCHQ captured "[e]mails from the BBC, Reuters, the Guardian, the New York Times, Le Monde, the Sun, NBC and the Washington Post." GCHQ retained the communications where they were accessible to all cleared staff on the agency intranet. The Guardian also indicates that " that a GCHQ information security assessment listed “investigative journalists” as a threat in a hierarchy alongside terrorists or hackers."

The National Academy of Sciences releases Bulk Collection of Signals Intelligence: Technical Options, a report mandated by Presidential Policy Directive 28. The report assesses “the feasibility of creating software that would allow the Intelligence Community more easily to conduct targeted information acquisition rather than bulk collection.” It concludes that software cannot replace bulk collection, but notes repeatedly that whether bulk collection is justified or not was not the focus of the report, and that the report does not address that question. 

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board publishes a follow up to two reports, one that addressed surveillance done under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, as well as the operations of the FISA Court, and one that addressed surveillance done under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. The "Recommendations Assessment Report" lists PCLOB's recommendations and the status of each of them. Many of the items are still "being implemented." The report notes that many of the recommendations to address problems with Section 215 and the FISA Court would have been fulfilled by the USA FREEDOM Act, but that since the act was not passed they are outstanding. It also reiterates PCLOB's recommendation that the Section 215 program end.

The Intercept reveals that GCHQ and NSA collaborated to hack into the internal networks of Gemalto, the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world. The spy agencies, led by GCHQ, stole the cellular encryption keys that are used to encrypt cellphone communications across the globe. The Intercept writes: "With these stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies can monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments. Possessing the keys also sidesteps the need to get a warrant or a wiretap, while leaving no trace on the wireless provider’s network that the communications were intercepted. Bulk key theft additionally enables the intelligence agencies to unlock any previously encrypted communications they had already intercepted, but did not yet have the ability to decrypt."

Despite President Obama's stated commitment to ending Section 215 bulk collection, his administration again obtains a 90-day renewal of the NSA's bulk telephone records collection from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. When announcing the renewal, the White House emphasizes that Congress has failed to pass legislation to address bulk collection, while not addressing the fact that the President could unilaterally end bulk collection now.

Der Spiegel releases hundreds of pages of documents along with a two-part story. Part one details a variety of offensive NSA operations that allow the agency to infiltrate and exploit networks around the world. Der Spiegel says "the US government is currently undertaking a massive effort to digitally arm itself for network warfare." Part two details how the NSA harnesses the activities of other spies: "The practice of letting other intelligence services do the dirty work and then tapping their results is so successful that the NSA even has a name for it: 'Fourth Party Collection.'"  

The ACLU announces: "The ACLU has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s mass interception and searching of Americans’ international communications. At issue is the NSA's “upstream” surveillance, through which the U.S. government monitors almost all international – and many domestic – text-based communications. The ACLU’s lawsuit, filed in March 2015 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, is brought on behalf of nearly a dozen educational, legal, human rights, and media organizations that collectively engage in hundreds of billions of sensitive Internet communications and have been harmed by NSA surveillance." The named plaintiff, Wikimedia, notes: "Our lawsuit says that the N.S.A.’s mass surveillance of Internet traffic on American soil — often called “upstream” surveillance — violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects the right to privacy, as well as the First Amendment, which protects the freedoms of expression and association." 

In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Department of Justice releases two previously-secret FISA Court orders, first, the so-called "Raw Take" order from 2002, which was first disclosed in a New York Times article: the order, apparently, "weakened restrictions on sharing private information about Americans, according to documents and interviews." The second opinion that remains secret is a 2008 FISC opinion concerning the legality and constitutionality of surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which includes Section 702.

The government releases a redacted version of an Inspector General report on Stellarwind that had been released in 2009 in a shorter, unclassified version. The newly declassified report shows that "[t]he secrecy surrounding the National Security Agency's post-9/11 warrantless surveillance and bulk data collection program hampered its effectiveness, and many members of the intelligence community later struggled to identify any specific terrorist attacks it thwarted." 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issues an opinion in ACLU v. Clapper. The court holds that the NSA’s telephone records program went far beyond what Congress authorized when it passed Section 215 of the Patriot Act in 2001. Notably, the court rejects the government's argument that collecting call records isn't a problem because they are "just metadata", noting how revealing this data can be. Although the court holds that it need not reach the ACLU’s constitutional claims because of its statutory holding, it also notes that the claims presented are very serious.

The New York Times article shows how extensively AT&T cooperated with the NSA, noting that in 2013 "The company installed surveillance equipment in at least 17 of its Internet hubs on American soil, far more than its similarly sized competitor, Verizon. And its engineers were the first to try out new surveillance technologies invented by the eavesdropping agency. One document reminds N.S.A. officials to be polite when visiting AT&T facilities, noting, “This is a partnership, not a contractual relationship.” The documents also confirm what EFF’s Jewel v. NSA lawsuit has claimed since 2008—that the NSA and AT&T collaborated to build a domestic surveillance infrastructure. 

Judge Richard Leon holds that the “[b]ulk telephony metadata collection and analysis almost certainly does violate a reasonable expectation of privacy," which, in turn, likely results in a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The court orders the NSA to purge the plaintiff's data from its system, and prohibits the NSA from collecting further phone records from the plaintiffs, but stays the order pending appeal.

After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sends Klayman v. Obama back to the District Court, accepting the government's challenge to the plaintiff's standing, the plaintiffs amend their complaint. Judge Richard Leon orders the NSA to cease collecting the telephone records of an individual and his business, and further orders the NSA to segregate any records that have already been collected so that they are not reviewed when the NSA’s telephone records database is queried. The order comes 20 days before the NSA program is set to expire pursuant to the USA FREEDOM Act.