The U.S. government maintains that its massive acquisition of information concerning the telephone communications of millions of Americans complies with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In this exclusive for The Privacy Advisor, David Bender examines whether such surveillance does in fact fall within FISA’s legal framework. While the government “may have a non-frivolous argument for needing the universal database or something resembling it” there is also an argument “against permitting such a database, as far too often the government’s right to collect information has been abused,” Bender says. Meanwhile, The Washington Post discusses the NSA chief’s desire to look not for the needle in the haystack, but instead to collect “the whole haystack.”
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