N.S.A. Buys Americans’ Internet Data Without Warrants, Letter Says

The National Security Agency buys certain logs related to Americans’ domestic internet activities from commercial data brokers, according to an unclassified letter by the agency. The letter offered few details about the nature of the data other than to stress that it did not include the content of internet communications. Still, the revelation is the latest disclosure to bring to the fore a legal gray zone: Intelligence and law enforcement agencies sometimes purchase potentially sensitive and revealing domestic data from brokers that would require a court order to acquire directly. In a letter to the director of national intelligence, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) argued that “internet metadata” — logs showing when two computers have communicated, but not the content of any message — “can be equally sensitive” as the location data the Federal Trade Commission is targeting. He urged intelligence agencies to stop buying internet data about Americans if it was not collected under the standard the FTC has laid out for location records.