The NSA Collects All Verizon Phone Records, Likely All Email and Internet Records as Well

It's not much of a secret that the US government has been spying on its people on a massive scale. Despite denial and attempts to hide the facts, some information has leaked out over the years.

But there's no denying it any longer, as The Guardian was able to get its hands on a confidential order asking Verizon to provide the phone records of all of its subscribers.

Every call made to and from a Verizon phone by anyone, has to be revealed and sent to the NSA.

The order is secret, and Verizon is forbidden from disclosing it. It lasts for three months, during which all calls must be logged. The call logs must be provided on an ongoing, daily basis.

It is very likely that all telecommunication companies in the US are getting a similar order and that this has been the case for the better part of the last decade.

The NSA likely has, like several anonymous or named sources have said, records of every call ever made in the last seven years or longer. This includes phone numbers, duration, location, and all manner of meta data.

This applies to all calls by anyone, regardless of whether they are suspected of anything or not. Because the order doesn't apply to the content of the actual calls, the government doesn't need a warrant.

The NSA has vastly expanded its reach after 9/11. The agency was supposed to strictly focus on foreign intelligence, but it's clear that it is now involved in mass-scale data gathering within the US.

While the report that leaked out has to do with phone records, there have been previous indications that all Internet and email communications are similarly tracked.

There's no reason to believe that Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and all major ISPs aren't getting the same type of broad orders to hand over data, orders they can't even disclose publicly.

But, of course, people are more concerned about what Google may be "tracking" to serve better ads than the mass, indiscriminate surveillance of their government, so don't expect the Obama administration to be that perturbed by the new reveal.