Swordsmyth
03-05-2019, 09:12 PM
The National Security Agency (NSA) has reportedly abandoned part of their infamous surveillance apparatus exposed by former contractor Edward Snowden, and used for the mass collection of Americans' communications records; including phone logs, metadata and text messages.
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com/s3fs-public/inline-images/NSA_phone_data%20%281%29.jpg
The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/nsa-phone-records-program-shut-down.html) noted that House minority leader national security adviser Luke Murry told The Lawfare Podcast (https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-luke-murry-and-daniel-silverberg-national-security-congress) that the NSA "hasn't actually been using it for the past six months," and that he's "not certain that the [Trump] administration will want to start that back up" (despite collecting 530 million US phone records in 2017 (https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-06/nsa-spying-explodes-over-530-million-us-phone-records-collected-2017))
Keep in mind, the NYT report isn't claiming the NSA has abandoned other programs such as XKeyscore - which the agency uses to search and analyze global internet data. When asked by German broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk "What could you do if you would use XKeyscore?" Edward Snowden replied:
You could read anyone's email in the world, anybody you've got an email address for. Any website: You can watch traffic to and from it. Any computer that an individual sits at: You can watch it. Any laptop that you're tracking: you can follow it as it moves from place to place throughout the world. It's a one-stop-shop for access to the NSA's information.
... You can tag individuals ... Let's say you work at a major German corporation and I want access to that network, I can track your username on a website on a form somewhere, I can track your real name, I can track associations with your friends and I can build what's called a fingerprint, which is network activity unique to you, which means anywhere you go in the world, anywhere you try to sort of hide your online presence, your identity. -Edward Snowden (https://web.archive.org/web/20140128224439/http://www.ndr.de/ratgeber/netzwelt/snowden277_page-3.html)
Of note, former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, was caught lying to Congress about the NSA's bulk data collection. In response to a 2013 question by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions, of Americans?," Clapper replied: "No sir, not wittingly."
More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-05/nsa-abandons-mass-surveillance-program-exposed-snowden
https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com/s3fs-public/inline-images/NSA_phone_data%20%281%29.jpg
The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/nsa-phone-records-program-shut-down.html) noted that House minority leader national security adviser Luke Murry told The Lawfare Podcast (https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-luke-murry-and-daniel-silverberg-national-security-congress) that the NSA "hasn't actually been using it for the past six months," and that he's "not certain that the [Trump] administration will want to start that back up" (despite collecting 530 million US phone records in 2017 (https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-06/nsa-spying-explodes-over-530-million-us-phone-records-collected-2017))
Keep in mind, the NYT report isn't claiming the NSA has abandoned other programs such as XKeyscore - which the agency uses to search and analyze global internet data. When asked by German broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk "What could you do if you would use XKeyscore?" Edward Snowden replied:
You could read anyone's email in the world, anybody you've got an email address for. Any website: You can watch traffic to and from it. Any computer that an individual sits at: You can watch it. Any laptop that you're tracking: you can follow it as it moves from place to place throughout the world. It's a one-stop-shop for access to the NSA's information.
... You can tag individuals ... Let's say you work at a major German corporation and I want access to that network, I can track your username on a website on a form somewhere, I can track your real name, I can track associations with your friends and I can build what's called a fingerprint, which is network activity unique to you, which means anywhere you go in the world, anywhere you try to sort of hide your online presence, your identity. -Edward Snowden (https://web.archive.org/web/20140128224439/http://www.ndr.de/ratgeber/netzwelt/snowden277_page-3.html)
Of note, former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, was caught lying to Congress about the NSA's bulk data collection. In response to a 2013 question by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions, of Americans?," Clapper replied: "No sir, not wittingly."
More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-05/nsa-abandons-mass-surveillance-program-exposed-snowden