Bulk Collection of Telephony Metadata Under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act.

The article reports on the U.S. National Security Agency's (NSA) domestic telephony metadata collection program under the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 which aims to detect and identify independent terrorists and terrorism networks. Topics discussed include features of the program, concerns over the constitutionality of the program and requirement for telephone service providers to provide the NSA with telephony metadata under the program. Also discussed are the basis for a metadata request.