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Newly released documents disclose the National Security Agency improperly compiled Americans’ call records for a second time, only months after the agency was forced to purge hundreds of millions of collected calls and text records it unlawfully obtained.
The document, obtained by the American Civil Autonomy Union, shows the NSA had compiled a “larger than expected” number of call detail records from one of the U.S. phone providers, though the redacted report did not reveal which provider nor how many records were improperly collected.
The document said the erroneously collected bellow detail records were” not approved” by the orders issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which permits and supervises the U.S. government’s surveillance activities.
Greg Julian, a spokesperson for the NSA, corroborated the report in an email to TechCrunch, saying the agency” determined additional data integrity and compliance concerns caused by the unique intricacies of using company-generated business records for intellect purposes .”
NSA said the issues were” addressed and reported” to the agency’s overseers, but did not comment further on the violations as they involve operational matters.
The ACLU called on lawmakers to investigate the improper collection and to shut down the program altogether.
” These reports further confirm that this surveillance program is beyond redemption and a privacy and civil liberties catastrophe ,” said Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project.” The NSA’s collection of Americans’ call records is too wiping, the compliance troubles too many, and evidence of the program’s value all but nonexistent .”
” There is no justification for lead this surveillance strength in the NSA’s hands ,” he said.
Under the government’s so-called Section 215 influences, the NSA collects millions of phone records every year by compelling U.S. phone monsters to turn over daily records, a classified program first revealed in a secret court decisions compelling Verizon — which owns TechCrunch — from reports divulged by whistleblower Edward Snowden. Those call records include the phone numbers of those communicating and when — though not the contents — which the agency uses to induce the relation between targets of interest.
But the government was forced to curtail the phone records collecting program in 2015 following the introduction of the Freedom Act, the only law passed by Congress since the Snowden revelations which successfully reined in what reviewers said was the NSA’s immense surveillance powers.
In recent years, the number of call records has gone down but not gone away completely. In its last clarity report, the government said it collected 434 million phone records, down 18% on its first year earlier.
But the government came under fire in June 2018 after it emerged the NSA had unlawfully collected 600 million call and text logs without the proper power. The organization said ” technical irregularities” intended it received call detail records it “was not authorized to receive.”
The agency deleted the entire batch of improperly collected records from its systems.
Following the incidents, the NSA reportedly shut down the telephone records collecting program quoting too burdensome legal requirements imposed on the agency. In January, the agency’s spokesperson said the NSA was ” carefully assessing all aspects” of the program and its future work, amid rumors that the agency would not ask Congress to reauthorized its expiring Segment 215 influences, set to expire later this year.
In an email Wednesday, the NSA spokesperson didn’t comment on the future of the program, saying only that it was ” a deliberative interagency process that will be decided by the Administration .”
The government’s Section 215 strengths are expected to be debated by Congress in the coming months.
DEA says AT& T still provides access to billions of phone records
Read more: techcrunch.com
