In a report by Glenn Greenwald, the paper published an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (or FISC) that directs Verizon to provide “on an ongoing daily basis” all call records for any call “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls” and any call made “between the United States and abroad.”

In plain language: the order gave the NSA a record of everyVerizon customer’s call history -- every call made, the location of the phone, the time of the call, the duration of the call, and other “identifying information” for the phone and call -- from April 25, 2013 (the date the order was issued) to July 19, 2013.  The order does not require content or the name of any subscriber and is issued under 50 USC sec.1861, also known as section 215 of the Patriot Act.