The National Security Agency (NSA) is a U.S. intelligence agency responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S. government communications and information systems. In the course of its work, the NSA has been known to conduct surveillance on U.S. citizens, both inside and outside the United States.
One example of NSA surveillance on U.S. citizens is the PRISM program, which was revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013. PRISM is a system that allows the NSA to collect electronic communications from major U.S. internet companies, including Google, Yahoo, and Facebook. The NSA has also been criticized for its collection of phone metadata from U.S. citizens, which includes information on phone numbers called and received, as well as the duration of calls. The NSA’s surveillance activities have been the subject of legal challenges and debates over privacy and national security.
Mass surveillance costs millions of Dollars. Yet, it does not improve security.