The NSA's massive surveillance operation is now just a little less massive

The NSA's spying program is still vast, but it's now a touch more restricted.

The agency has long collected texts and emails sent to and by Americans if those electronic communications contained the names of folks whom the NSA was conducting surveillance on, but that's no longer the case. 

This, as the New York Times reported Friday, is a significant rollback of a surveillance program that privacy advocates have railed against since a series of NSA spying programs and mechanisms were revealed in 2013. 

The main issue many privacy advocates had: The spying didn't require a warrant and was based on the content of the message rather than the people having the digital conversation.  Read more...