Justice Department documents obtained by the ACLU reveal a sharp spike in warrantless electronic surveillance by federal law enforcement:
“Pen registers” are devices which detect outgoing information about who telephone or Internet users are contacting and when those communications took place. “Trap and trace” devices capture similar incoming data. So this surveillance would capture the phone numbers that a target is dialing or the email addresses of the people they are in contact with, but it should not capture the actual content of their conversations or emails.
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