BREAKING NEWS: The N.S.A. is halting part of its warrantless spying: collecting Americans’ emails sent overseas that merely mention foreign targets

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.

But privacy advocates argue that such broad collection of information means the agency, with help from telecommunications companies, is intercepting communications based on what they say, rather than who has sent or received it.

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