Publication

This paper provides an overview of the two main NSA collection activities approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) established under the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. These are: 1) the collection of telephony metadata for domestic and international telephone calls and 2) the interception of Internet-based communications, targeted at foreigners who are not in the United States, but may also inadvertently acquire the communications of US persons. The authors also examine the various constitutional challenges that have arisen in judicial forums related to the two programs.