Office of the Director of National Intelligence General Counsel Robert Litt delivered remarks titled, "Privacy, Technology, and National Security: An Overview of Intelligence Collection," at the Brookings Institution on July 18, 2013.

Peter Orszag writes that cities installing traffic cameras to curb speeding and impose fines may also be tempted to monetize the data that those cameras collect.

The Guardian obtained a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order requiring Verizon to give the National Security Agency "information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the U.S. and between the U.S. and other countries" on an "ongoing, daily basis" from April 25 through July 19, 2013.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a statement to address the recent "unauthorized disclosure" of a U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order. The document requires Verizon to provide the National Security Agency with detailed telephone call records of millions of U.S.-based customers on a daily basis. In response, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has declassified selected details related to the "business records" provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

This report discusses the history of constitutional interpretations and legislative responses relevant to the collection of private information for criminal investigation, foreign intelligence gathering, and national security purposes. Next, it summarizes the relevant statutory frameworks and changes made by the USA PATRIOT Act and subsequent measures

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) provides a statutory framework by which government agencies may, when gathering foreign intelligence information, obtain authorization to conduct wiretapping or physical searches, utilize pen registers and trap and trace devices, or access specified business records and other tangible things.

Anya Schmemann remembers life under surveillance in the Soviet Union in light of the recent U.S. embassy staffer's explusion from Moscow.

Post-9/11 U.S. counterterrorism and surrounding civil liberties issues are unlikely to stray far from currently policy no matter who is in the White House in 2013, says CFR's Matthew Waxman.

Richard A. Falkenrath says changes to national privacy law are essential to protect personal privacy in the age of pervasive social media and cloud computing--and Google's new privacy policy points even more firmly to the need for a right to be forgotten.

Steven Mufson explains why many oppose the idea of smart grid technology, despite its energy-saving benefits.

Facebook and Google have aroused concerns about encroachments on privacy online, but media expert Jeff Jarvis says policymakers need to be careful not to overreact and encroach on the Internet's value as a public sphere and lifeline in closed societies.

The government’s quest to use new technology to track terrorist threats is raising fresh concerns about privacy and free speech.

Executive summary of report on the use of section 215 of the Patriot Act.

This CRS report focuses on US Government attempts to collect and analyze information on telephone calling patterns within the United States. The report summarizes statutory authorities regarding access by the Government, for either foreign intelligence or law enforcement purposes, to information related to telephone calling patterns or practices, and discusses statutory prohibitions against accessing or disclosing such information, along with relevant exceptions to those prohibitions.

This CRS report considers the issue of the privacy of cellular telephone records. It discusses recent legislative and regulatory efforts to protect the privacy of customer telephone records, and efforts to prevent the unauthorized use, disclosure, or sale of such records by data brokers. In addition, it provides a brief overview of the confidentiality protections for customer information established by the Communications Act of 1934.

Report of a discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the policy challenges in balancing homeland security and wider freedoms. The discussion focuses upon domestic surveillance activities in the US and the implication for civil liberties.

This report considers data mining in the context of homeland security. Data mining can be a potential means to identify terrorist activities, such as money transfers and communications, and to identify and track individual terrorists themselves, such as through travel and immigration records. It examines the degree to which government agencies should use and mix commercial data with government data, whether data sources are being used for purposes other than those for which they were originally designed, and possible application of the Privacy Act to these initiatives. It is anticipated that congressional oversight of data mining projects will grow as data mining efforts continue to evolve.