NSA recommends White House end phone metadata collection program

The U.S. National Security Agency is recommending that the White House not push to renew a controversial metadata collection program, originally exposed by Edward Snowden in 2013.

In a switch from its prior position on the matter, the NSA has decided that the program is too much of a burden to keep going, sources informed the Wall Street Journal. The program collects metadata about phone calls and text messages, nominally to trace links between suspects in matters like terrorism. Snowden's leaks showed that many innocent Americans were having data scooped up as well, potentially making it a tool for mass surveillance.

2015's U.S.A. Freedom Act scaled back the program, keeping records in the hands of carriers except when requested through court orders. The NSA's internal records did drop dramatically, although as recently as 2017, it had 534 million records and just 40 targets.

In 2018 the NSA claimed it deleted its entire database of records created since the Freedom Act system launched, a way of coping with glitches that caused carriers to send logs with both accurate and inaccurate information. That resulted in the NSA collecting data from people unconnected to targets, and it supposedly decided it would be easier to wipe records entirely rather than scrub the people it didn't have authority to monitor.

The Freedom Act is due to expire at the end of 2019, and the Trump administration would have to push for renewal legislation if it wants it.

In March an advisor for Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California said that the NSA hadn't been using the metadata collection system for six months. If that's the case, it's likely the Trump administration will let the program die.

Apple CEO Tim Cook quickly became involved after Snowden's revelations, meeting with President Obama and putting pressure on Congress. The company eventually began disclosing government data requests, if only in the vague manner allowed by law.

Less is known about the state of PRISM, an NSA program collecting data from internet-based tech companies. Following the Snowden leaks, Apple insisted that it had "never heard of PRISM" and didn't "provide any government agency with direct access to our servers," despite that sort of access being mentioned in leaked NSA briefing documents.

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16 Comments

maestro64 5029 comments · 19 Years

About 5 years ago

This tells me the data was meaningless, there was too much for them to deal with just to find the few bad guys. If this was truly affective they would not have abandon it like this. It sounds like they were collecting data just for sake of collecting and some bright people thought they could develop an algorithm to find the bad people . I also suspect the people they are interested in have shifted what they are doing. like not using technology.

1STnTENDERBITS 460 comments · 8 Years

maestro64 said:

This tells me the data was meaningless, there was too much for them to deal with just to find the few bad guys. If this was truly affective they would not have abandon it like this. It sounds like they were collecting data just for sake of collecting and some bright people thought they could develop an algorithm to find the bad people . I also suspect the people they are interested in have shifted what they are doing. like not using technology.

This tells me they've improved the program, made it more effective, and found additional uses for it. They're going to "cancel" it publicly and continue it's use with even less oversight. I'm more inclined to believe the dog and pony show of "this doesn't work" is more feint than fact. Cynical and conspiratorial? Maybe. Wrong?¯\_(ツ)_/¯

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

1STnTENDERBITS said:

maestro64 said:

This tells me the data was meaningless, there was too much for them to deal with just to find the few bad guys. If this was truly affective they would not have abandon it like this. It sounds like they were collecting data just for sake of collecting and some bright people thought they could develop an algorithm to find the bad people . I also suspect the people they are interested in have shifted what they are doing. like not using technology.

This tells me they've improved the program, made it more effective, and found additional uses for it. They're going to "cancel" it publicly and continue it's use with even less oversight. I'm more inclined to believe the dog and pony show of "this doesn't work" is more feint than fact. Cynical and conspiratorial? Maybe. Wrong?¯\_(ツ)_/¯

if there’s one thing we’ve learned as U.S. citizens over the years it’s that our government cannot be trusted no matter which politicians are in charge. Some of the still classified stuff would likely make our hair stand on end if we knew about it. Just read and research. Experiments infecting black men with syphilis , spraying radioactive chemicals on populations just to see what happened. Attempted genocide of the native North American population for the sake of expansion.

StrangeDays 12980 comments · 8 Years

True, but if there's one thing I've learned working in city & federal government as a consultant, is that these are not the best and the brightest...they're government workers, or they're staff augmentation contractor companies like mine (I am also not an elite level guy, or I'd be in the valley...instead I'm doing enterprise work; it's stable and pays fairly well). Plus, nobody can keep secrets forever.

SpamSandwich 32917 comments · 19 Years

That’s right folks, the massive and unconstitutional data collection effort which originated under George W. Bush and then was continued with abandon under Obama will likely be ended by the current President.