The original proposals were made in 2013 and 2014 by legislators in the American states of Utah, Washington, Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and California.
[5] Through this surveillance program, President George W. Bush authorized the NSA to wiretap international calls where one party was suspected of having affiliations with Al Qaeda.
[7] The Terrorist Surveillance Program became publicly known after several NSA whistleblowers, William E. Binney, Ed Loomis, Thomas A. Drake and J. Kirk Wiebe, came forward with information about the agency's database collection program, Trailblazer, which eliminated the privacy protections for U.S. citizens that its predecessor, the ThinThread Project, promised.
[19] Snowden's revelations and released documents detailed that the NSA's data collection programs were much broader, deeper, and insidious than previously released information had shown, and included collection of data even from users of Xbox Live, World of Warcraft and Second Life, as well as NSA agents spying on their own love interests.
[20][21] In 2014, former U.S. State Department whistle-blower, John Tye, wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post, outlining his concerns over data collection under Executive Order 12333.
[22] Part 2.3 (i) allows that "incidentally obtained information that may indicate involvement in activities that may violate federal, state, local or foreign laws" may be collected, retained and disseminated.
It was introduced by senators Ted Lieu and Joel Anderson, with the intention of adding Chapter 32.5 (commencing with Section 7599) to the state government's code.
Its intention aimed to prohibit providing any resources, participation, or aid of any sort to requests made by federal agencies that attempt to collect metadata by means in which the state finds illegal.
[25][26] In the state of Washington, multiple bills have been proposed in order to offer protections from certain NSA data collection operations.
[27] Its primary intention was to prevent the use of data and online information obtained without a proper warrant from being used as evidence against individuals being prosecuted in a court of law.
In addition, any persons or corporations found to have been providing services to federal agencies for unconstitutional purposes would be guilty of misdemeanors.
[34] Two large technology companies, Microsoft and Apple, were involved in litigation with the US Government in 2016 on the basis of protecting the privacy of their consumers.
A self-confessed robber in the case, gave the name and cell phone number of Timothy Carpenter to FBI agents, stating that he was involved.
[39] The S. 139 bill has made minor key changes to potentially enhance more effective ways to protect privacy in the United States while still tracking possible terrorist attacks.
[42] Representatives Justin Amish and Zoe Lofgren offered the USA Rights Act, pertaining a more balanced scale between security and liberty as this bill protects the 4th amendment along with eliminating the warrantless backdoor searches, that would then require government officials to obtain warrants in order to seize and view American citizens' data when the NSA and FBI tack into foreigner activities seeking any relations to terrorism.