NSA Timeline

 Email showing violations of the program.

 Meeting to discuss recent motions.

"'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.'"

"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."

"A Pentagon office that became steeped in controversy over privacy issues and a market in terrorism futures was shut down by Congress today as the Senate passed and sent to President Bush a $368 billion military measure that eliminates money for it. The Pentagon spending plan for 2004 adopted by the Senate says that the office, the Information Awareness Office, which had been headed by Adm. John M. Poindexter, should be "terminated immediately" while a few projects under its control could be shifted elsewhere within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The House passed the measure on Wednesday. "

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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]."

"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]."

"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]."

"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."

"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."

"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 with at least a dozen other top officials or more—including [the FBI director]...he told Ayres, would be his last day."

"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."

“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.”

"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."

"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."

"In response to the Government’s identification and notice to the FISA Court regarding improper dissemination of information related to an ongoing threat, the FISA Court ordered a hearing to inform the FISA Court of the scope and circumstances of the compliance incident."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 March 6, Goldsmith and Philbin, with Comey's concurrence, met with Addington and Gonzales at the White House to convey their conclusions that certain activities in the PSP should cease. According to Goldsmith's notes, Addington and Gonzales 'reacted calmly and said they would get back with us.'" It is later revealed in a June 2013 Washington Post article that the "certain activities" include "e-mail metadata and technical records of Skype calls from data links owned by AT&T, Sprint and MCI, which later merged with Verizon."

"On March 6, Goldsmith and Philbin, with Comey's concurrence, met with Addington and Gonzales at the White House to convey their conclusions that certain activities in the PSP should cease. According to Goldsmith's notes, Addington and Gonzales 'reacted calmly and said they would get back with us.'" It is later revealed in a June 2013 Washington Post article that the "certain activities" include "e-mail metadata and technical records of Skype calls from data links owned by AT&T, Sprint and MCI, which later merged with Verizon."

"On 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."

"On 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."

“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 first [Department of Justice] Office of Legal Counsel opinion directly supporting the legality of the PSP was dated November 2, 2001, and was drafted by Yoo."

"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."

"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 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."

"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 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."

"The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews. Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional."

"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?"

"Twenty-three days after the Twin Towers fell, President Bush signed off on a secret eavesdropping operation so sensitive that even many of the country's senior national security officials, men and women with highest security clearances in his administration, knew nothing about it."

"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."

"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."

16 former counsel, advisers, and professional staff members of the Church Committee, including the Church Committee's Chief Counsel Frederick A.O. Schwarz, Jr., write a letter calling on Congress to form a new Church Committee to investigate intelligence activity practices. The letter reminds Congress, the President, and the public about the illegal and unconstitutional actions by the NSA and other agencies that led to the creation of the first Church Committee: “We determined that sweeping domestic surveillance programs, conducted under the guise of foreign intelligence collection, had repeatedly undermined the privacy rights of US citizens.” The letter closes by emphasizing the need for “A Church Committee for the 21st Century- a special Congressional investigatory committee that undertakes a significant and public reexamination of intelligence community practices that affect the rights of Americans and the laws governing those actions- is urgently needed. Nothing less than the confidence of the American public in our intelligence agencies and, indeed, the federal government, is at stake.”

A 30 day report is filed with the FISA Court by the government.

A 30 day report is filed with the FISA Court by the government.

A bipartisan Senate investigation stemming from Watergate, led by Sen. Frank Church, finds the NSA and other intelligence agencies engaged in a massive domestic spying program, targeting anti-war protesters, civil rights activists, and political opponents. Sen. Church remarked: "That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide."

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.

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.

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.

A memo from the US government that appears to relay the government's legal justifications for mass spying.

A memo from the US government that appears to relay the government's legal justifications for mass spying.

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.

A sua sponte order by the Judge requesting the Executive produce a redacted version of the order for public release.

According to a Wired report, the mystery company follows the reciprocal notice provision in the NSL and challenges the gag order.

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."

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."

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.

ACLU files a motion to argue in front of the FISA Court about the government's mass spying under the FISA Amendments Act.

ACLU responds to the government's motion.

ACLU responds to the governmet's opposition.

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."

After Section 215 of the Patriot Act expires temporarily, the Senate passes the USA Freedom Act by 67-32. The legislation attempts to end the bulk collection of calling records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act by limiting collection to instances where there is "reasonable, articulable suspicion" that a "specific selection term" used to request call detail records is associated with international terrorism. Under the USA Freedom Act, the government must use a specific selection term, which represents an "individual, account, or personal device." It also creates an amicus position in the FISA Court which is meant to T advocate for the protection of civil liberties and privacy, educate the court on intelligence collection or communications technologies, and answer any questions the court may have. The legislation also directs the government to declassify “significant” FISA Court opinions and defines “significant” to include any novel interpretation of “specific selection term” or other novel construction of law. In addition to these improvements, the legislation is critiqued for extending the maximum sentence for material support charges and not addressing the rights of non-U.S. persons. However, the passage of USA Freedom also marks the first time in over thirty years that both houses of Congress approved a bill placing restrictions and oversight on the National Security Agency’s surveillance powers.

After the government appeals the lower court decisions in Doe I and Doe CT holding the NSL statute unconstitutional, Congress amends the statute in the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006. Because the amendments apply retroactively, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit holds that the amendments rendered the decision in Doe I moot as to Fourth Amendment claims and raised novel First Amendment issues as well as rendering the decision in Doe CT moot. The court vacates and remands Doe I to the district court for consideration of the plaintiffs’ claims in light of the changed statute and dismisses Doe CT.

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.

After the September 11th attacks, Congress passes the USA PATRIOT Act, amending the FBI’s NSL authorities under ECPA, RFPA and FCRA. Section 505 expands and decentralizes the authority for issuing an NSL, allowing issuance by the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of an FBI field office, rather than requiring approval by the FBI Director or Deputy Assistant Director. In addition, the scope of the authority is expanded to include records that are “relevant to an authorized investigation .” The issuing official is no longer required to make a certification of “specific and articulable facts” and need only certify the information sought is “relevant.” The Act adds a limitation that the investigation cannot be predicated sonly on First Amendment protected activities. The PATRIOT Act also adds a fifth NSL authority, akin to the FBI’s authority under the FCRA, which allows any agency investigating terrorist activity to obtain financial records from a consumer credit agency where such information is “necessary” to the investigation. See Section 505, P.L. 107-56, 115 Stat. 365-66 (2001).

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.

Almost two months after the USA PATRIOT Act is reauthorized, the gag order on the Library Connection is finally lifted. The four librarians involved speak about their frustration at being prohibited by the FBI from participating in the Congressional discussion around the PATRIOT Act reauthorization.

An Internet Service Provider, later identified as Nicholas Merrill, receives an NSL from the FBI. Together with the ACLU, he files suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, challenging the NSL provisions on First and Fourth Amendment grounds.

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.

An unknown provider (now known to be Yahoo!) asks the FISA Court to publish documents in a case Yahoo! litigated.

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

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

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."

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."

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 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 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 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 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).

As part of the settlement of the challenge to the NSL in Doe v. Holder, the FBI lifts the gag order. The recipient is revealed to be Nicholas Merrill, the proprietor of Calyx Internet Access.

As PolitiFact reports: "Obama spokesman Bill Burton issued this unequivocal statement to the liberal blog TPM Election Central: 'To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.'" Less than a year later, Senator Obama votes in favor of retroactive immunity in a June 2008 vote for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008.

As required by the 2006 PATRIOT Act Reauthorization, the OIG issues a report reviewing the FBI’s use of NSLs from 2000 to 2005. The report finds that the FBI “misused NSLs in violation of applicable NSL statutes, Attorney General Guidelines, and internal FBI policies.” In addition, the number of NSLs issued increased dramatically after the passage of the PATRIOIT Act, from 8,500 in 2000 to more than 47,000 in 2005. Reported violations include the use of “exigent letters,” which avoid the NSL statutory requirements by improperly invoking exceptions that apply only in emergencies.

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."

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: "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."

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.

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."

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

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 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: "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 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 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."

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."

As the New York Time reports: "On July 10, 2009, the inspectors general from five federal agencies—the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—released an unclassified report investigating the origins and operations of the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program." This timeline extensively quotes from the joint Inspector Generals Report and can be read in full by following the "read more" link.

As the New York Time reports: "On July 10, 2009, the inspectors general from five federal agencies—the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—released an unclassified report investigating the origins and operations of the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program." This timeline extensively quotes from the joint Inspector Generals Report and can be read in full by following the "read more" link.

As the New York Time reports: "On July 10, 2009, the inspectors general from five federal agencies—the Justice Department, the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—released an unclassified report investigating the origins and operations of the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program." This timeline extensively quotes from the joint Inspector Generals Report and can be read in full by following the "read more" link.

As the New York Times reports: "In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation’s surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks, officials say."

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."

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 Wall Street Journal reports: "On a day rich in history, Barack Obama took office Tuesday as the 44th president of the US, urging Americans to stand together amid the 'gathering clouds and raging storms' of war and recession." In his Inaugural Speech, Obama declares: "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake."

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 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."

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."

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."

AT&T Technician Mark Klein brings in documents to EFF lawyers detailing the construction of the NSA's secret spying room in AT&T's San Francisco facility. The room contains advanced surveillance technology capable of reading domestic and international communications.

AT&T Technician Mark Klein brings in documents to EFF lawyers detailing the construction of the NSA's secret spying room in AT&T's San Francisco facility. The room contains advanced surveillance technology capable of reading domestic and international communications.

AT&T Technician Mark Klein brings in documents to EFF lawyers detailing the construction of the NSA's secret spying room in AT&T's San Francisco facility. The room contains advanced surveillance technology capable of reading domestic and international communications.

Attorney General Mukasey invokes the recently-passed Section 802 of the FISA Amendments Act and asserts the retroactive immunity clause to declare that certain ISPs are immune from suit.

Breaking an October 2007 promise, Senator Obama votes for retroactive immunity in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act of 2008. In his statement Senator Obama writes: "It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives - and the liberty - of the American people."

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.”

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.

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.

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."

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.

Dana Priest, of the Washington Post, describes the processes of NSA's data collection.

Declaration attached to the Supplemental Opinion from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court with a Secret classification. Potentially by the FBI or the DOJ.

Declaration attached to the Supplemental Opinion from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court with a Top Secret classification. Potentially by the NSA Director.

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.

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."

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

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.

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.'"  

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."

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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,"

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.

DNI James Clapper decided to declassify parts of the widespread dragnet surveillance on June 5. In it, he reveals the authenticity of the top secret court order Verizon was given by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and defends the program.

Due to the government shutdown, the DOJ files a Motion to Stay proceedings to delay the declassification review.

EFF and ACLU file a lawsuit on behalf of the Internet Archive challenging a national security letter issued to the Internet Archive. The lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of the gag order accompanying the NSL, as well as the FBI’s authority to issue an NSL to the Archive.  The case is filed under seal, which is later lifted on May 5, 2008, a month after the government officially withdraws its letter.

EFF argues that the claims against the government are not "generalized grievances" and that the number of people harmed should have no bearing on whether each individual—whose own communications and communications records are being intercepted and diverted to the government—should be able to sue. On appeal, the government does not seriously defend the District Court’s reasoning but instead renews its old argument that the case should be dismissed based on the state secrets privilege. Click here for a video of the hearing.

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

EFF argues that the lawsuit cannot be dismissed based on the government's blanket secrecy assertion (the state secrets privilege), as made clear in previous court decisions concerning NSA spying and the CIA's special rendition program. EFF also argues that the government is not immune from suit for violating federal wiretapping statutes.

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.

EFF asks the Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit's decision in Hepting v. AT&T. The Ninth Circuit dismissed EFF's lawsuit against telecom companies for their role in the NSA's domestic spying program.

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.

EFF files a FOIA suit seeking information on the FBI’s misuse of the NSL authority. Over four years, thousands of pages of documents are released, leading to repeated revelations of government abuses of power. Based on EFF’s report on the documents, Congress poses some tough questions to the FBI.

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

EFF files an opening brief and a combined answering/opening brief in the Ninth Circuit for three related NSL cases. 

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.

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 points out that three longstanding statutes protect the privacy of Americans' communications from wholesale, unwarranted government surveillance: Title III (The Wiretap Act), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the Stored Communications Act. It also notes that the Constitution forbids such surveillance. Like EFF's earlier case, Hepting v. AT&T, the Jewel case relies in part on the whistleblower evidence uncovered by former AT&T technician, Mark Klein, detailing a secret facility at the Folsom Street office of AT&T in San Francisco where copies of private customer communications are routinely given to the NSA.

EFF’s client, a telecommunications provider, files a petition in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to the NSL it received under the review provisions included in the 2006 PATRIOT Act Reauthorization. The petition asks the court to set aside the NSL and hold both the NSL authority and the nondisclosure provision unconstitutional. The company’s identity remains secret.

EFF’s client, a telecommunications provider, is issued an NSL with a gag order preventing it from discussing the case or revealing that it has received an NSL.

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.

Email showing violations of the program.

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.

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

Ex Parte Submissions of Amended Certifications

Ex-NSA Analyst J. Kirk Wiebe recalls: "everything changed at the NSA after the attacks on September 11. The prior approach focused on complying with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ("FISA"). The post-September 11 approach was that NSA could circumvent federal statutes and the Constitution as long as there was some visceral connection to looking for terrorists." While another ex-NSA analyst also remembers: "The individual liberties preserved in the US Constitution were no longer a consideration [at the NSA]."

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.

Facebook requests to release FISA court data.

FISA Court Chief Judge Reggie Walton directs the Executive to redact Judge Eagen's Memo of Opinion in line with her sua sponte request.

FISA Court Judge Eagen files a Memo of Opinion with the court's legal rationale for justifying the spying.

FISA Court response to Center of National Security Studies' (CNSS) letter requesting a public hearing. The FISA Court responds that the CNSS letter can not be considered a motion since it doesn't follow the FISA Court rules; however, the FISA Court also says CNSS may resubmit a motion.

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."

From AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein: "While on the January 2003 tour, I saw a new room being built....The new room was near completion. I saw a workman apparently working on the door lock for the room. I later learned that this new room being built was referred to in AT&T documents as the "SG3 Secure Room." The SG3 Secure Room was room number 641A, and measures approximately 24x48 feet."

From the New York Times "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was enacted in 1978, passed in response to revelations by the Church Committee showing widespread abuse of government wiretaps, and to growing concerns on the part of the Supreme Court over eavesdropping practices. The law governs the surveillance of people in the United States for the purpose of collecting intelligence related to foreign powers. A secret court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, was created to hear requests for such warrants. Safeguards were put in place to ensure that investigators pursuing criminal matters did not obtain warrants under FISA that they could not get from an ordinary judge."

Glenn Fine, Inspector General of the Justice Department, testifies that of a random sample of NSLs surveyed by the OIG, 97% contained a gag order.

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.

Government files semiannual report on the compliance with the procedures and guidelines of acquisitions under Section 702 of FISA. It covers August 25, 2009 to November 30, 2009.

Government files semiannual report on the compliance with the procedures and guidelines of acquisitions under Section 702 of FISA. It covers June 1, 2012 to November 30, 2012.

Government files semiannual report on the compliance with the procedures and guidelines of acquisitions under Section 702 of FISA. It covers September 4, 2008 to November 30, 2008.

Government files semiannual report on the compliant with the procedures and guidelines of acquisitions under Section 702 of FISA.

Government files semiannual report on the compliant with the procedures and guidelines of acquisitions under Section 702 of FISA. It covers June 1, 2009 to November 30, 2009.

Government files semiannual report to the FISA Court about its acquisitions under Section 702 of FISA.

Government files semiannual report to the FISA Court about its acquisitions under Section 702 of FISA.

Government files semiannual report to the FISA Court about its acquisitions under Section 702 of FISA. It covers June 1, 2009 to November 30, 2009.

Government's filing laying out its procedures for handling the telephony metadata it receives.

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.”

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.

Hearing to address violations on September 21 and September 23. The government did not send a written notification.

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.

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."

In a landmark ruling in US v. US District Court, the Supreme Court unanimously rules the government must comply with the Fourth Amendment when surveilling an alleged domestic intelligence threat. The majority opinion says, "The price of lawful public dissent must not be a dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power. Nor must the fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation. For private dissent, no less than open public discourse, is essential to our free society."

In a letter to the Congress on January 17, 2007, then Attorney General Gonzales announces that a judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: "had issued orders authorizing the government to target for collection international communications where there is probable cause to believe one of the communicants is a member or agent of Al Qaeda or an associated terrorist group. As a result of these orders, any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."

In a letter to the Congress on January 17, 2007, then Attorney General Gonzales announces that a judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: "had issued orders authorizing the government to target for collection international communications where there is probable cause to believe one of the communicants is a member or agent of Al Qaeda or an associated terrorist group. As a result of these orders, any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."

In a report about the NSA's mission for the 21st Century, the agency notes: "The volumes of routing of data make indexing and processing nuggets of intelligence information more difficult. To perform both its offensive and defensive mission, NSA must 'live on the network.'"

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.

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.

In a speech and accompanying presidential directive on the Signals Intelligence Activities of the US intelligence community, President Obama touches on NSL reform. While not adopting the recommendations of his hand-picked review group from December 2013, the president advocates changing the procedure by which NSL gag orders are imposed and shortening their duration.

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 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 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 court documents released in April, it was uncovered that Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio refused to honor NSA requests for information—unlike AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint.

In Hepting v. AT&T, EFF sues the telecommunication giant on behalf of its customers for violating privacy law by collaborating with the NSA's illegal domestic spying program. Evidence in the case includes undisputed evidence provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA.

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.

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. "

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.

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.

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.

In oral arguments in the Ninth Circuit, EFF argued that the court should uphold the lower court's ruling that national security letters are unconstitutional.

In part it describes Exhibit B and why the telephone records of all Americans are necessary to collect. BR FISA is so valuable.

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.

In reaction to the Aldrich Ames espionage case, Congress gives agencies authority to issue NSLs to financial institutions, consumer credit agencies and travel agencies to obtain credit and financial information relating to federal employees with access to classified information in the context of an investigation of leaked information. The NSL statute contains gag order provisions, restrictions on dissemination, and a grant of immunity for institutions that comply with the NSL. See 50 U.S.C. § 436 (1994 ed.).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In response to the Oklahoma City bombings, Congress gives the FBI the authority to issue NSLs to consumer credit agencies to obtain information from consumer credit agencies without judicial oversight. The NSL statute contains gag order provisions, restrictions on dissemination and a safe harbor for credit agencies that comply with the NSL. The FCRA statute authorizes judicial enforcement of the NSL. See 15 U.S.C. § 1681u(c), (d), (f), (k).

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Judge orders to re-release August opinion due to a "technical printing error."

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.

Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California rules that the gag order provision of the NSL statute amounts to an unconstitutional prior restraint, violating the First Amendment. Because the statute does not require the government to initiate judicial review of the gag order or specify a brief period of restraint, it fails the procedural requirements for prior restraints established by the Supreme Court in Freedman v. Maryland. Additionally, Judge Illston rules that the gag order provision is a content-based restriction on speech that cannot meet strict scrutiny under the First Amendment because the government failed to show that it is “generally necessary to prohibit recipients from disclosing the mere fact of their receipt of NSLs.” The provisions governing judicial review of a gag order are also found to violate the First Amendment and the constitutional requirement of separation of powers. Because they are not severable from the rest of the statute, the government is consequently enjoined from issuing further NSLs. The ruling and the injunction are stayed pending appeal.

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.

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 dismisses dozens of lawsuits against telecommunication companies for their role in illegal domestic surveillance of American citizens, ruling that the companies had immunity from liability under the controversial FISA Amendments Act.

Judge Walker of the Northern District Court rejects the government's argument that the lawsuit must be dismissed due to the state secrets privilege .

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.

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.'"

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."

Letter from the Center for National Security Studies requesting a public argument against the government's application to collect all domestic calling records.

Mark Klein's manager at AT&T's San Francisco Folsom Street Facility advises him that the NSA is coming to interview a colleague for a “special job” in the Secret Room.

Mark Klein's manager at AT&T's San Francisco Folsom Street Facility advises him that the NSA is coming to interview a colleague for a “special job” in the Secret Room.

Mark Klein's manager at AT&T's San Francisco Folsom Street Facility advises him that the NSA is coming to interview a colleague for a “special job” in the Secret Room.

Missing orders from the court and other documents filed.

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."

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.

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.”

NSA admits it filed reports that contained miscollected upstream communications that they were not supposed to be used.

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

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."

NSA files its  court mandated 60 day report on the Section 215 BR FISA collection.

NSA files its court mandated 120 day report on the Section 215 BR FISA collection.

NSA files its court mandated 45 day report on the Section 215 BR FISA collection. Tells FISA Court about violation of two analysts who made 280 queries.

NSA files notification to FISA Court about tool finding certain correlations in telephony metadata.

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

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."

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).

On appeal from the district court’s 2007 ruling in Doe v. Ashcroft (later Doe v. Holder) that the NSL statute is unconstitutional, the Second Circuit upholds the district court decision in part and reverses in part. Although the court finds that the gag and judicial review provisions are unconstitutional under certain circumstances, it does not uphold the district court’s invalidation of the entire statute. The appeals court finds that the statute could potentially be applied in a constitutional way if the government voluntarily follows a “reciprocal notice” procedure in which the recipient of an NSL firsts notify the government it wishes to challenge a gag order, and the government then initiates judicial review. The court remands for consideration of how to proceed in reviewing the NSL at issue in this case.

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.

On June 11, 2013, Google asked the government for permission to publish “certain aggregate numbers about its receipt of national security requests,” and a week later petitioned the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court with the same request. Yahoo!, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Facebook also filed similar motions, and Apple filed an amicus brief. After extended negotiation, on January 27, 2014, the Deputy Attorney General issued a letter to the companies, giving them two options for reporting numbers of national security requests (including national security letters). Neither of the options allow providers to definitively state that they have received zero NSLs.

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.

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."

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."

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."

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."

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."

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."

On September 11, 2001, terrorists fly hijacked planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon. A fourth plane, bound for the Capitol Building, crashes in rural Pennsylvania after passengers wrest control from the hijackers. Nearly 3,000 people die in the attacks. The New York Times reports that day: "In what appeared to be parallel attacks on quintessential symbols of American financial and military power, hijackers flew jetliners into both towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan and, less than an hour later, into the Pentagon, outside Washington. The 110-story towers at the World Trade Center soon collapsed in a horrific storm of flying glass and rubble. The largest of several smaller buildings in the World Trade Center complex, a 47-story structure that had been set ablaze by debris in the morning, gave way in late afternoon."

Opinion of the FISA Court concluding that the production of bulk telephony metadata records pursuant to Section 501 of FISA is not inconsistent with Sections 2702 and 2703 of Title 18 of the USC.

Order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA.

Order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA.

Order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA.

Order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA.

Order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA.

Order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA.

Order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA.

Order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA.

Order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA. The order also includes, for the first time, the use of "Defeat Lists."

Order of the FISA Court renewing the mandate of certain companies to send all Americans' calling records to the NSA. The order also no longer requires NSA to seek FISA Court approval to query the telephony metadata program on a case-by-case basis.

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.

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.

President Bush signs into law the Protect America Act. As the Washington Post reports: "The bill would give the National Security Agency the right to collect such communications in the future without a warrant. But it goes further than that: It also would allow the monitoring, under certain conditions, of electronic communications between people on U.S. soil, including U.S. citizens, and people 'reasonably believed to be outside the United States,' without a court's order or oversight."

President Bush signs into law the Protect America Act. As the Washington Post reports: "The bill would give the National Security Agency the right to collect such communications in the future without a warrant. But it goes further than that: It also would allow the monitoring, under certain conditions, of electronic communications between people on U.S. soil, including U.S. citizens, and people 'reasonably believed to be outside the United States,' without a court's order or oversight."

President Obama responds to a question about the recent revelations of a top secret Verizon order mandating calling information of all US phone calls and NSA's access to major Internet companies. Obama defends the program by citing congressional and federal judicial oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, but neglects the calls for transparency from Senators and the ongoing lawsuits.

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.

Primary Order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA and also allowing the collection of some subset of the original request for calling records.

Responding to the mystery company’s challenge to the gag order in the NSL it received, the government asks the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to uphold the gag order.

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

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

Sometime in 2011, the Obama administration ends the collection of Internet metadata program.

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.

Summary of an Executive Branch meeting discussing oversight issues.

Supplemental Opinion discusses the FISA Court's restrictions  and directs the government to provide the court with  additional information regarding queries of the telephony metadata.

The 2010 OIG finds continued problems with the use of NSLs stemming from the lack of oversight within the FBI. The report discusses “serious abuses” of NSL authority, including the issuance of NSLs to communications service providers to obtain reporters’ telephone records based on their First Amendment activities. The report also finds that the FBI’s use of exigent letters “became so casual, routine, and unsupervised that employees of all three communications service providers sometimes generated exigent letters for FBI personnel to sign and return to them.”

The 2014 OIG report is released with significant redactions. In a footnote, the OIG emphasizes that it believes the redactions are excessive, noting that the FBI's decision to assert that certain information is sensitive has "the effect of redacting information we believe is important to the public's understanding of the FBI's compliance with NSL requirements." The report finds that the FBI has complied with many of the OIG's recommendations, but that "additional effort from the FBI remains necessary to implement three recommendations we made in our previous reports to improve the FBI's record-keeping practices." The report also finds that the FBI issued fewer NSLs from 2007-2009, but returned to normal numbers after 2009. While the OIG notes improvement in some areas with regards to compliance with NSL requirements, it makes seven new recommendations to improve NSL practics. The report also notes significant issues with how the FBI interprets the scope of its authority under NSL statutes, as well as ongoing problems with the FBI's use of exigent letters, which are supposed to be used only in cases of emergency and have continued to raise concerns about constitutionality.

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."

The ACLU files a complaint challenging an NSL and accompanying gag order issued to an unidentified member of the American Library Association. The challenge also includes a request for an emergency injunction against the gag order on First Amendment grounds. It is later revealed that the FBI’s NSL was directed to Library Connection, a consortium of 26 Connecticut libraries.

The ACLU files a motion asking the court release its January 10, 2007 opinion.

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 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 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.

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 bill, sponsored by Senator Leahy and Representative Sensenbrenner, proposes to amend the NSL statute. The Act would require the government to seek judicial review of an NSL gag order if asked to do so by a recipient, shifting some of the burden of seeking review to the government. Other reforms include improving the judicial review standard, requiring that challenges be resolved promptly, and adding a sunset provision so that the authority would be reviewed by Congress in 2015.

The bills, known as the Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts Act of 2009 or the JUSTICE Act, seek to address the requirements, including the factual foundation for the issuance of an NSL and changes to the gag order provisions and other. The bills do not come to a vote.

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.

The Center for National Security Studies resubmits its letter in motion form.

The court finds that NSL’s gag order provision, 18 U.S.C. 2709(c), violates the First Amendment on its face because it applies “in every case, to every person, in perpetuity, with no vehicle for the ban ever to be lifted from the recipient or other persons affected under any circumstances, either by the FBI itself, or pursuant to judicial process.” The court also finds that the NSL statute violates the Fourth Amendment because it has the effect of “authorizing coercive searches effectively immune from any judicial process[.]” Enforcement of the judgment is stayed pending appeal

The court hold's an additional hearing asking more questions regarding the government's statistical analysis.

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.

The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General reissues the 2007 and 2008 reports that were mandated by the 2006 PATRIOT Act Reauthorization. The reports are mostly identical, but some details have been declassified. The details made public make it clear that the FBI continues to engage in excessive classification and redaction when it comes to national security letters.

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

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.

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 district court rules that the government must release a less-redacted version of the NSL issued in the Doe case but upholds other aspects of the gag order.

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.

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.

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.

The Doe v. Gonzales (Doe CT) plaintiff remains bound by the NSL gag order and unable to participate in the debates surrounding reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act, but the New York Times writes an article correctly hypothesizing that the NSL recipient is Library Connection.  The ACLU later points out that the government had failed to redact the Library Connection’s name from legal documents.

The FBI notifies EFF and the Internet Archive that it will be withdrawing the NSL and settling the case. At the time, the Washington Post writes that it is only one of three known instances in which the government has backed off from an NSL that it has issued.

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

The FISA Court "'approves in large part' certifications [redacted]." 

The FISA Court accept the government's June 18 application and files a Memorandum of Opinion and a Primary Order

The FISA Court accepts the government's June 18 application to collect BR FISA data from telecommunications companies and issues an order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA.

The FISA Court approves an expansion of the August 8, 2006 order to "include queries of the BR metadata for telephone identifiers reasonably believed to be associated with [redacted] associated terrorist organizations to include [redacted]."The original order mandated certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA.

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.

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 specific queries of the BR metadata.

The FISA Court approves the continuation of upstream collection and Court new minimization procedures submitted in October.

The FISA Court approves the government's application and mandates certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA. The order also approves--for the first time--automatic querying and associating (called, "contact chaining,") of the calling records. This means that numbers approved for spying are automatically associated with telephone numbers three-contacts (or three "hops") away.

The FISA Court approves the government's July 14, 2011 Motion to Extend

The FISA Court approves the government's use of Section 702 for "upstream" collection.

The FISA Court continues its order that the government must seek court approval to query the BR metadata, except where necessary to protect against an imminent threat to human life. Aug 17, 2009 In re Order.

The FISA Court denies the ACLU's motion noting the ACLU failed to establish a right of access to the records.

The FISA Court denies the ACLU's motion to intervene in the court.

The FISA Court denies the ACLU's motion to rehear its case after the Court's December 2007 denial.

The FISA Court directs the US to provide additional information regarding the NSA's improper querying of the telephony metadata.

The FISA Court enters an order granting the government's April 2011 submissions. The order extends the deadline to October 10, 2011.

The FISA Court files a scheduling order for the parties to respond by.

The FISA Court files an opinion on the order to compel the production of items.

The FISA Court files an order going over the history of the October and November submissions

The FISA Court files an order to compel items from Yahoo!.

The FISA Court grants the government's May 5, 2011 motion, and also requests further briefing.

The FISA Court grants the US government's Motion to Stay the proceedings.

The FISA Court issues an order allowing the government to use Section 702.

The FISA Court issues an order mandating certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA, but it also mandates that NSA must ask the court, on a case-by-case basis to search the telephony metadata "except where necessary to protect against an imminent threat to human life."

The FISA Court mandates certain companies send all Americans' calling records to the NSA; however, the NSA must seek court approval to query the BR metadata on a case-by-case basis, except "where necessary to protect against an imminent threat to human life."

The FISA Court meets with Senior officials at the DOJ to discuss the government's June 1 and June 28 submissions.

The FISA Court notes the government's recent violations regarding the fact that unminimized US person information was revealed to analysts.

The FISA Court notes the ongoing violations and misrepresentations to the court about the NSA's upstream collection.

The FISA Court orders a classification review for an April 15, 2008 opinion.

The FISA Court orders a classification review for an August 22, 2008 opinion.

The FISA Court orders certain documents published after receiving redactions from the Executive.

The FISA Court orders certain documents published after receiving redactions from the Executive.

The FISA Court orders the government to file a reply to Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn's motion to publish FISA data. It also orders one reply brief from the collective companies.

The FISA Court orders the government to file a report every 90 days regarding the government's collection of information under Section 702.

The FISA Court orders the June 14, 17, and 25 responses published.

The FISA Court releases an order with an unusual, and unpersuasive, legal analysis establishing what appears to be the first time the Court has ever publicly released its legal justification for the BR FISA program.

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 renews an order to mass collect Americans' calling records.

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

The FISA Court requests a response from the government concerning ACLU's request to publish the January order.

The FISA Court requires further briefing from the government about systemic violations and problems.

The FISA Court responds "through [its] staff" to ask a number of follow-up questions regarding the June 1, 2011 government response.

The FISA Court responds to the Preliminary Notice of Compliance Incident. The FISA Court orders a brief from the US government by to help the Court assess "whether the orders should be modified or rescinded; whether other remedial steps should be directed; and whether the Court should take action regarding persons for any misrepresentations made to the court or either through its orders."

The FISA Court sets a briefing schedule for when the government and plaintiff must respond.

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.

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 FISA Court writes about the compliance issues.

The FISA Court, for the first time, discusses the collection of all Americans' calling records in light of US v. Jones.

The Fourth Amendment reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The government admits it materially misrepresented the scope of NSA's upstream collection.

The government and AT&T appeal Judge Vaughn Walker's June 2006 decision rejecting the argument that the state secrets privilege prevented millions of ordinary American from having their day in court.

The government files a complaint against EFF’s client, the telecommunications provider, which had one month earlier filed a petition to the NSL it received. In it, the government argues that EFF’s client’s decision to challenge the NSL and not comply with its demands “interferes with the United States’ vindication of its sovereign interests in law enforcement, counterintelligence, and protecting national security.” The complaint seeks to force the company to comply with the NSL.

The government files a declaration from Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Oestricher with a certification by FBI director Robert Mueller, which indicates that the FBI is no longer demanding compliance with the NSL served on Doe I on February 10, 2004. However, the case continues, since the gag order on the NSL recipient is still in place.

The government files a motion "explaining that in handling information collected under the prior certifications, NSA has been applying a modified version of the amended NSA minimization procedures." 

The government files a motion opposing ACLU's intervention in the FISA court.

The government files a motion seeking an additional 60 day extension of the period in which the court must complete its review of 702(g) certifications.

The government files a motion to extend the time limit to use Section 702.

The government files a motion to the FISA Court requesting approval of its Section 702 certifications and minimization procedures.

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

The government files a response to the FISA Court questions regarding the amended Section 702 certifications.

The government files a response to the October 13, 2011 request by the FISA Court for further briefing.

The government files a supplemental motion to their June 1 and June 28 submissions.

The government files an "Application for Certain Tangible things for Investigations to Protect Against International Terrorism." This is an application for an order from the FISA Court to collect telephony metadata from certain companies.

The government files an "Application for Certain Tangible things for Investigations to Protect Against International Terrorism." This is an application for an order from the FISA Court to collect telephony metadata from the FISA Court.

The government files an "Application for Certain Tangible things for Investigations to Protect Against International Terrorism." This is an application for an order from the FISA Court to collect telephony metadata from the FISA Court.

The government files an "Application for Certain Tangible things for Investigations to Protect Against International Terrorism." This is an application for an order from the FISA Court to collect telephony metadata from the FISA Court.

The government files further submissions including the  percentages of traffic the NSA is collecting using Section 702.

The government files further submissions, most likely about further violations.

The government files its opening brief challenging EFF’s victory in the Northern California District Court.

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 government files its targeting and minimization procedures for BR FISA telephony metadata with the FISA Court.

The government files submissions to approve use of Section 702

The government files submissions to approve use of Section 702

The government files submissions to approve use of Section 702

The government informs the FISA Court that the court will receive redacted documents shortly for publication.

The government notifies the court that NSA's reasonable attempt to purge miscollected upstream communications is complete.

The government proposes to also declassify other documents relating to case.

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.

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 government reports to the FISA Court that NSA discovered an unminimized US person was improperly shared with [redacted].

The government responds that the orders must be kept secret and not released to the public.

The government responds to the FISA Court's questions of June 17, 2011.

The government submits further filings stating that US person identifiers will not be used to query "fruits of upstream collection."

The Guardian publishes a Secondary Order compelling Verizon to hand over its customers calling records. Other orders are presumably sent to other telecommunications companies.

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 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 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 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."

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."

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 House of Representatives passes the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (“FAA”). As Ars Technica reported: "When the votes were tallied, just under half of House Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the bill. Floor debate on the measure, which expands executive branch surveillance authority and provides retroactive amnesty for telecoms implicated in warrantless NSA wiretapping, consisted largely of mutual congratulation. There were, however, a few sour notes during the proceedings. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) complained that the bill 'actually permits the government to perform mass, untargeted surveillance of any and all conversations believed to be coming into and out of the United States, without any individualized finding, and without a requirement that wrongdoing is believed to be involved at all.'"

The House of Representatives passes the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (“FAA”). As Ars Technica reported: "When the votes were tallied, just under half of House Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the bill. Floor debate on the measure, which expands executive branch surveillance authority and provides retroactive amnesty for telecoms implicated in warrantless NSA wiretapping, consisted largely of mutual congratulation. There were, however, a few sour notes during the proceedings. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) complained that the bill 'actually permits the government to perform mass, untargeted surveillance of any and all conversations believed to be coming into and out of the United States, without any individualized finding, and without a requirement that wrongdoing is believed to be involved at all.'"

The House of Representatives passes the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (“FAA”). As Ars Technica reported: "When the votes were tallied, just under half of House Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the bill. Floor debate on the measure, which expands executive branch surveillance authority and provides retroactive amnesty for telecoms implicated in warrantless NSA wiretapping, consisted largely of mutual congratulation. There were, however, a few sour notes during the proceedings. Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) complained that the bill 'actually permits the government to perform mass, untargeted surveillance of any and all conversations believed to be coming into and out of the United States, without any individualized finding, and without a requirement that wrongdoing is believed to be involved at all.'"

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

The Inspectors General Report states that a month after the Program begins, only four members of Congress are provided a briefing: "On October 25, 2001, White House officials and [NSA Director] Hayden conducted a briefing on the PSP for the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Nancy P. Pelosi and Porter J. Goss; and the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, D. Robert Graham and Richard J. Shelby."

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 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 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 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.

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 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."

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 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 interim procedures of collection and possibly minimization techniques

The Internet Archive receives an NSL for subscriber information from the FBI accompanied by a gag order preventing it from discussing the NSL. On the Archive’s behalf, EFF challenges the constitutionality of the NSL statute and argues that the Internet Archive is protected by provisions in the PATRIOT Act Reauthorization that prevent the FBI from issuing NSLs to libraries except when they act as providers of telecommunications services.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 on this day the Chief of NSA Signals Intelligence Directorate Office of Oversight and Compliance Briefed on Program.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, "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, "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, "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, "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: "[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: "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: "On Saturday and 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 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 National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS or NSA) is headquartered in Fort Meade, Maryland. It is responsible for collecting, processing, and disseminating intelligence information from foreign electronic signals for national foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations.

The National Security Letter Reform Act is introduced, first in the House and then in the Senate. Despite bipartisan support, these bills both fail to move forward.

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 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.

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 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 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 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.

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.

The Ninth Circuit reverses a decision by the district court that resulted in the case's dismissal, holding that the claims raised in Jewel were not "generalized grievances" but, instead, were the types of claims that were suitable for resolution by the judicial branch.

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.

The NSA alerts the court that the "Alert List" included telephone identifiers that were not RAS-approved.

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.

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.

The NSA files an extensive report on numerous violations of the programs.

The NSA sends a letter to the FISA Court discussing violations of the court's order regarding its "upstream" collection.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

The plaintiffs challenge the amended NSL statute on constitutional grounds. On summary judgment (without the need for oral argument from the attorneys in the case) the court rules that the revised nondisclosure provision in § 2709 is still a prior restraint on speech that fails strict scrutiny, that the conclusive presumption of harm to national security upon certification by high level officials in § 3511 violates the constitutional separation of powers, and that the gag orders violate the First Amendment because they are not narrowly tailored in scope or duration. Because these provisions cannot be severed, the court strikes down the NSL statute completely but stays enforcement pending review.

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

The President decides not to reauthorize the Presidential Surveillance Program and the final Presidential Authorization expires on February 1, 2007, after FISA court opinion allegedly allows him to continue it indefinitely.

The President decides not to reauthorize the Presidential Surveillance Program and the final Presidential Authorization expires on February 1, 2007, after FISA court opinion allegedly allows him to continue it indefinitely.

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.

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board holds a hearing focused "on the government's collection of foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision pursuant to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."

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 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 Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, appointed by President Obama in the wake of the Snowden disclosures, issues a report recommending reforms to surveillance authorities, including NSLs. The Review Group recommends gradually revising the standards by which NSLs are issued, requiring judicial oversight in every case.

The RFPA restricts financial institutions’ ability to disclose customers’ financial information, but § 1114 of the RFPA establishes an exception for disclosures “pursuant to requests from a Government authority authorized to conduct foreign counter- or foreign positive-intelligence activities” or the Secret Service “for the purpose of conducting its protective functions.” A precursor to the NSL authorities, section 1114 is an exception that allows banks to provide information voluntarily but does not permit the FBI or any other government agency to compel the disclosure of private information. See Section 1114, P.L. 95-630, 92 Stat. 3706 (1978)

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."

The second OIG report finds that NSL use continued to increase to 48,106 in 2006 alone. Violations of the statutory requirements had continued to occur, although the report notes FBI has been making efforts to correct the problems described in the 2007 Report.

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.

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

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

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

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 Senate met in very contentious session on May 28th, which included more than 10 hours of floor time from Senator Rand Paul. Senator Paul threatened a filibuster, and spent those hours talking about why NSA spying needs to be reformed. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried desperately to stave off the expiration of the expiring provisions of the Patriot act, but was unsuccessful. He called the Senate back for a Sunday session on May 31st. At that session, the Senate let three provisions of the Patriot Act expire: Section 215, the section the government uses to collect phone and other business records in bulk, the "Lone Wolf provision," and the "roving wiretap" provision. Ultimately, the Senate passed the USA Freedom Act. But for a few days, Section 215 of the Patriot Act expired.

The Senate votes 60 to 28 in favor of passing the bill, while the House followed by passing the bill, 227–183. As The New York Times reports: "Seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States. New law gives the attorney general and the director of national intelligence the power to approve the international surveillance, rather than the special intelligence court."

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.

The Supreme Court decides not to review EFF's case against AT&T, Hepting v. AT&T, for the telecommunications carrier's role in the NSA domestic spying program. The Supreme Court lets stand a Ninth Circuit decision upholding Congress' grant of "retroactive immunity" to the telecommunications companies, passed as part of the FISA Amendments Act two years after EFF had filed suit against the telecom companies.

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.

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

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

The third response by the government to the FISA Court updating the court of its declassification process to declassify documents related to Yahoo!'s opposition to a government request.

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."

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 U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut rules on a First Amendment challenge to the gag order provision preventing the NSL recipient from revealing its identity. The court grants a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the order, finding that the plaintiff has demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits that the gag order was an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. However, the government appeals the court’s decision, and the NSL recipient remains unable to speak.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California orders unsealing of the filings in the Internet Archive’s challenge to its receipt of an NSL, allowing the Internet Archive and EFF to speak publicly about the case.

The US files a notice to the FISA Court of a violation of the program collecting Americans' calling records.

The US government files a letter to the FISA Court enclosing a copy of a report on the program done on June 25, 2009.

The US government files a memo with additional information relating to the compliance incident described on February 3, 2009.

The US government files a motion asking the FISA Court to extend the May 2006 order so that it can use more telephone identifiers to query the database.

The US government files a notice of improper sharing of BR FISA information.

The US government files a notice telling the FISA Court that it inadvertently acquired US persons communications.

The US government files a notice with the FISA Court that the NSA uploaded BR FISA to databases that other agencies had access to.

The US government files a report ordered by the FISA Court.

The US government files a response to the FISA Court's briefing order.

The US government files a response to the October 13, 2011 court briefing

The US government files a semiannual report for the entire year on electronic collection of FISA. It covers December 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009.

The US government files another notice of a violation to the FISA Court.

The US government files further amended NSA minimization procedures.

The US government files further briifing materials with FISA Court.

The US government files more information about a previously reported violation.

The US government files semiannual report on BR FISA program

The US government files submissions to approve use of Section 702.

The US government provides the FISA Court with additional violations of the program during the NSA's end-to-end review of the telephony metadata program.

The US Senate passes the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (“FAA”). P.L. 110-261. As the The New York Times reported: "The Senate gave final approval on Wednesday to a major expansion of the government’s surveillance powers, handing President Bush one more victory in a series of hard-fought clashes with Democrats over national security issues. The measure, approved by a vote of 69 to 28, is the biggest revamping of federal surveillance law in 30 years. It includes a divisive element that Mr. Bush had deemed essential: legal immunity for the phone companies that cooperated in the National Security Agency wiretapping program he approved after the Sept. 11 attacks."

The US takes no position.

The USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006 respond to the legal challenge to NSLs in Doe v. Ashcroft by creating procedures for judicial review and enforcement of the NSLs and gag order requirements. Under § 2709, in order to impose a gag order on the recipient of an NSL, a high level official of the FBI must certify that disclosure may result in “a danger to the national security of the United States, interference with a criminal, counterterrorism, or counterintelligence investigation, interference with diplomatic relations, or danger to the life or physical safety of any person.” Under § 3511, the recipient of an NSL can petition to have the NSL and the gag order set aside if there is no reason to believe disclosure would endanger national security. However, a certification by the Attorney General that disclosure will harm national security is treated as conclusive unless made in bad faith. The amendments also establish a penalty of up to five years in jail for failure to comply with the nondisclosure and make clear that a recipient of an NSL can consult an attorney. Finally, the amendments require that the Department of Justice’s Inspector General issue reports reviewing the FBI’s use of NSLs. See P.L. 109-178, 120 Stat. 278 (2006).

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."

The Wall Street Journal reports on the government’s decision to file a civil complaint against a telecom company to force compliance with an NSL. The government’s suit is filed after the NSL recipient invokes its right to challenge the NSL.

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." 

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 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."

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 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."

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."

The White House announced the release of its report on Big Data and Privacy. Although President Obama announced the review that led to the report during his January 17th speech on NSA reform, the report made no mention of NSA surveillance. It did address other issues, such as discrimination based on big data. It also, unfortunately, likened whistleblowing to violent crimes.

The White House created a Tumblr account, which follows up on President Obama's committement during a press conference to create a new website where declassified documents relating to the NSA Spying can be released. The first document released: the 2011 FISA Court Opinion EFF had sued the government over.

Twitter sues the Department of Justice and the FBI in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint asks the court to hold that Twitter is not bound by a January 2014 letter from the Deputy Attorney General to Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Facebook (the DAG letter) in response to an action in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court by these companies. Although Twitter wasn’t a party to this action, “the DOJ and FBI told Twitter that the DAG Letter sets forth the limits of permissible transparency-related speech for Twitter,” including reporting on NSLs and told Twitter it couldn’t publish unspecified information in an April 2014 draft transparency report. Twitter’s complaint argues it shouldn’t be bound by a settlement it wasn’t a party to, and asks the court for declaratory judgment that it can publish its April 2014 transparency report. It also asks the court to hold that NSL gag orders and judicial review procedures are unconstitutional.

Under an amendment to RFPA, Congress gives the FBI authority to issue NSLs to obtain financial records under the same standards as ECPA. Like the ECPA NSL authority, the RFPA amendment contains a gag authorization provision and a limitation on dissemination, but no enforcement mechanism or penalty for failure to comply. On its face, the gag order provision is absolute and permanent, precluding the recipient of an NSL from disclosing “to any person” that the FBI had sought access to the records requested. See 12 U.S.C. § 3414(a)(5)(A) (1988), Section 404, P.L. 99-536, 100 Stat. 3190, 3197 (1986)

Under ECPA, Congress gives the FBI authority to issue NSLs to telephone companies and other communications providers to obtain customer information including name, address, length of service and billing records. The NSL can be issued without judicial oversight in relation to a foreign intelligence investigation when a high-ranking FBI official certifies that “there are specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the person or entity to whom the information sought pertains is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.” The ECPA NSL statute has a gag order provision, 18 U.S.C. § 2709(c), and a limitation on dissemination, but no enforcement mechanism or penalty for failure to comply. See 18 U.S.C. § 2709 (1988 ed), P.L 99-508, 100 Stat. 1848, 1867 (1986)

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.

Under the amendment, the definition of a “financial institution” which can be issued an NSL under the RFPA is expanded to include car dealers, jewelers, real estate agencies, casinos and others. P.L. 108-177, §374, 117 Stat. 2628 (2004)

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."

US Attorney General Eric Holder makes his annual appearance in front of the House Judiciary Committee regarding the committee's oversight of the DOJ.

Yahoo! and US government agree to briefing schedule

Yahoo! files a motion requesting the court to further declassify documents.