- United States National Security Agency(NSA) is planning to end the highly controversial, once-secret, surveillance program for counter terrorism.It used to annually collect hundreds of millions of telephone call records to analyze the data for clues.
- The program was disclosed by Edward Snowden. It then became a focus of debate about maintaining balance between privacy and counter -terrorism.The controversy over the surveillance issue eventually led to the passage of the USA Freedom Act, which curbed some of the agency’s spying powers.
- Under the Freedom Act, the NSA may have access to that data only after obtaining a court order that specifies a phone number or person associated with a suspected foreign terrorist.