Drew RiveraEnglish 4Ms. R. Crow11 December 2013NSA Espionage: What is it and how can we stop it?The National Security Agency was created in 1952 through a top secret memorandum signed by President Truman. At the time of its creation, the NSA was classified and only a few members of Congress knew about it. The agency's existence had remained a deep secret until it was revealed in a Senate investigation called the "Church Committee" in 1975 (2nd source title: Timeline of NSA Domestic Spying). The Committee uncovered illegal domestic spying by the NSA and recommended that it make reforms. This was one of the first incidents/scandals for the NSA. Previously, in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that warrants were necessary and that the NSA must provide the names of all U.S. citizens and residents it wanted to monitor. After 9/11, President Bush ordered the NSA to wiretap without court-approved warrants, technically breaking previously established “rules” on domestic espionage. Leaked reports from whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden claim that the NSA is examining millions of phone records collected by Verizon (Source headline: NSA is said to be spying on millions of Verizon users). Does this seem legal to you? The NSA collects and tracks calls made in the United States, including the phone number of the phone receiving and making the call and the duration of the call. This is known as "metadata" and does not include the call recording. This information was discovered through a leaked secret court order, according to which Verizon must provide all information that meets these criteria every day. Telephone companies, including AT&T and Sprint, are also said to be providing data to the NSA on a daily basis. All... half of the paper... detailed program information. In this sense, the supposed “congressional oversight” seems more like an illusion of accountability. The NSA says its domestic spying mission is “simple” in that it is here to: collect, process, and store U.S. citizen data for the good of our citizens. nation. The NSA also points out that they must address the information overload we have in our country and use it to their strategic advantage. This in turn helps them find new ways to detect, report and respond to all domestic threats. “We work through you. For you. For our nation.” (Source: http://nsa.gov1.info), this means they are trying to justify that spying on civilians is done for the good of our nation. While they claim this is for the good of our nation, this violates any laws previously established in the constitution or amendments in the Bill of Rights??