FISA court renews NSA permission to collect call metadata

News that the NSA collects bulk phone call metadata (phone numbers, call times and duration) from Verizon and other backbone providers initially leaked out in June. Since then PRISM, Edward Snowden and any number of other national security related topics have been in the spotlight, and the new focus has spurred at least one change in the process. On Friday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence publicly announced the request -- following other declassified documents about the program -- and that it has been renewed (again) by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. As The Hill mentions, the NSA claims its analysts are only able to search through the collected data if there is "reasonable, articulable suspicion" a phone number is connected to terrorist activity. With analysts still able to paw through tons of our data this doesn't quite feel like the transparency promised, but even this small admission that it's happening highlights how things have changed.
SOURCE: Office of the Director of National Intelligence