In his first major speech on electronic surveillance, President Obama recently stated, “the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don't threaten our national security." But the NSA doesn't consider the mass collection of information regarding telephone calls, emails, and other "metadata" to be spying. Indeed, President Obama authorized such "bulk collection" of information in a recent Presidential Policy Directive. Bulk data collection provides the NSA with the potential to reveal unknown associations by and among potential terrorists. But vast databases filled with our personal information may also be used more nefarious purposes. The NSA and Obama generally believe the mere collection of personal information – without reading it – does not constitute an invasion of our personal privacy. The Washington Post recently disclosed that the NSA is gathering hundreds of millions of e-mail address books and is building a database of trillions of location records transmitted by mobile phones around the world.

For now, Obama says he will require the NSA to obtain court approval to search through its treasure trove of personal information.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/obamas-restrictions-on-nsa-surveillance-rely-on-narrow-definition-of-spying/2014/01/17/2478cc02-7fcb-11e3-93c1-0e888170b723_story.html

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