Charlie Savage reports:
The National Security Agency is stopping one of the most disputed forms of its warrantless surveillance program in which it collects Americans’ emails and texts to and from people overseas and that mention a foreigner under surveillance, according to officials familiar with the matter.
National security officials have argued that such surveillance is lawful and helpful in identifying people who might have links to terrorism, espionage or otherwise are targeted for intelligence-gathering. The fact that the sender of such a message would know an email address or phone number associated with a surveillance target is grounds for suspicion, these officials argued.
Read more on the New York Times, and then explain to me why this is happening now.
Update: Okay, after I posted the above, Savage expanded and updated his initial brief report, so we now have some understanding of why this is happening now.