When President George W. Bush signed the USA Patriot Act in 2001, it lowered the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s standards for surveillance in order to monitor terrorists in the wake of 9/11. In 2002, Bush issued a secret presidential order that gave the National Security Agency unprecedented warrantless wiretapping powers. Though the Bush administration claimed it was doing so to protect citizens domestically, the exact legal parameters of this rapidly growing surveillance apparatus became fuzzier with each passing year.

When Barack Obama campaigned for president in 2007, he said that the Bush administration put “forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand. I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorist without undermining our Constitution and our freedom.”