The Patriot Act’s Sec. 215 (50 U.S.C. § 1861) authorizes the government to collect “tangible things” that are “relevant” to an authorized national security investigation.

We now know that NSA used Sec. 215 to collect metadata on every phone call that every American has made, reportedly over the last seven years. (..)

Pursuant to Sec. 215 and at the request of the government, the FISA court routinely enters 90-day orders to telecommunications providers like Verizon to turn over to the government all call detail records or “telephony metadata” for calls within the U.S., including purely local calls.