Steven Aftergood writes:
By every available measure, the level of domestic intelligence surveillance activity in 2010 increased from the year before, according to a new Justice Department report to Congress on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
“During calendar year 2010, the Government made 1,579 applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (hereinafter ‘FISC’) for authority to conduct electronic surveillance and/or physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes,” according to the new report (pdf). This compares to a reported 1,376 applications in 2009. (In 2008, however, the reported figure — 2,082 — was quite a bit higher.)
Read more on FAS.