A report from the Brennan Center for Justice provides a good summary of how the authorities are accessing that data in order to help them with their work: The proliferation of connected devices provides expansive opportunities for the government to assemble detailed portraits of people’s lives.

With expiration set for Dec. 15, whatever the Senate does the Call Detail Records program, barring some eleventh-hour legislative chicanery, looks like the rarest of birds: a post-9/11 surveillance activity on course for extinction.“We would not be in this position today if Edward Snowden had not revealed the bulk collection program,” said Liza Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice.

As shown by a newly released report from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, the Department of Homeland Security, specifically Customs and Border Protection, can share social media data with federal, state and local government agencies, along with law enforcement and even multilateral governmental organizations and foreign states.

The Brennan Center for Justice reports schools are purchasing social media monitoring tools with increasing frequency, allowing them to track and surveil students far past the borders of the school grounds.