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This site goes over the general facts about NSA surveillance programs. It describes the basic metadata that is collected for US phone calls:"the telephone number of the phones making and receiving the call, and how long the call lasted." It mentions the NSA program PRISM which collects emails, instant messages, and both private and public facebook data. It also mentions the program XKEYSCORE which gathers massive amounts of data from internet traffic. This FAQ also mentions what sort of things can be revealed by metadata and why critics of these programs find them alarming and illegal. This is a great article that covers the basic issues and concerns associated with NSA and mass surveillance. You could have students read it as a way to prep them for a project or discussion on this topic.