The NSA began collecting its own data on Americans‘ phone calls within months of Sept. 11, 2001, as a way to identify potential terrorists within the USA. At first, it did so without court approval. In 2006, after The New York Times and USA TODAY began reporting on the surveillance program, President George W. Bush‘s administration brought it under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the government to use secret court orders to get access to records relevant to national security investigations. Unlike the DEA, the NSA also gathered logs of calls within the USA.