NSA Halts Backdoor Surveillance Of Americans’s Email

The NSA has said that it is suspending collection of information under the controversial Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that gives the NSA the ability to read your email if your email mentions a target of a FISA investigation and goes to someone outside the United States.

The National Security Agency said Friday that it had halted one of the most disputed practices of its warrantless surveillance program, ending a once-secret form of wiretapping that dates to the Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11 expansion of national security powers.

The agency is no longer collecting Americans’ emails and texts exchanged with people overseas that simply mention identifying terms — like email addresses — for foreigners whom the agency is spying on, but are neither to nor from those targets.