never left
The spying never left, if you recall they shifted the storage responsibility to the Telcos. Which the NSA has direct access. This took it off the NSA books and provided closer to real time access or data/connection records. Which has improved the speed at which people can be intercepted. They are now looking to publicly display their abilities as apposed to hiding (can get legally tricky), but want it to look legal - by having publicly acknowledged access.
There is nothing good to come of this, but it's not like anyone has a choice - it's still going on either way.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
