If you’ve been paying attention, you know a little bit about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs that track the phone records of American citizens.
Perhaps to quell public concerns over privacy, U.S. officials revealed that fewer than 300 people had their phone records searched in 2012, the Washington Post reports.
This particular database dates back to 2006 and is authorized under the Bush-era, post-9-11 Patriot Act. It contains tens of millions of Americans’ phone records.
The government can obtain an order from a special surveillance court to get all call detail records on a daily basis as long as they are relevant to a foreign terrorist investigation, the Post reports.
Does knowing that make you feel any better?