“President Harry Truman set up the NSA through a secret directive in 1952, allowing the agency virtually free reign to snoop on the Soviet Union and to track communications entering and leaving the United States. Congress imposed more oversight and stricter legal guidelines in the 1970s after a Senate inquiry exposed a string of abuses, including the use of the NSA to spy on Americans involved in anti-war and other protests. The NSA’s budget remains classified but it is believed to be the largest in the intelligence community. Now, each day the NSA intercepts more than a billion emails, phone calls and other types of communications, according to ‘Top Secret America.'”
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