NSA deleting more than 685 million call records due to 'technical irregularities'

Washington Times ^ | July 1, 2018 | Deb Riechmann and Susannah George

[EdnaMode]

The National Security Agency is deleting more than 685 million call records the government obtained since 2015 from telecommunication companies in connection with investigations, raising questions about the viability of the program.

The NSA’s bulk collection of call records was initially curtailed by Congress after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing extensive government surveillance. The law, enacted in June 2015, said that going forward, the data would be retained by telecommunications companies, not the NSA, but that the intelligence agency could query the massive database.

Now the NSA is deleting all the information it collected from the queries. The agency released a statement late Thursday saying it started deleting the records in May after NSA analysts noted “technical irregularities in some data received from telecommunication service providers.” It also said the irregularities resulted in the NSA obtaining some call details it was not authorized to receive.

[KarlInOhio]

If you are just storing time, duration, source number and location and destination number and location but no recording or motion tracking during the call, 32 bytes per call should be enoungh. That amounts to 22 GB or about 2% of a typical 1 TB drive.

I saw an estimate of 6 billion phone calls per day, so the NSA is disposing of about 2-3 hours of data.

[usconservative]

685,000,000 is a proverbial drop in the bucket. They need to ALL be deleted, NSA had legal permission to do what they did. This illegal surveillance of the American people needs to be shut down, period.

Want to eavesdrop on someone? GET A WARRANT! That's what the USSC said!

[King Moonracer]

Probably just the calls from somebody at “cardholder services” or “vacation rewards”. It would be rally cool if for practice, the NSA destroyed all spam caller sites.

[blackdog]

Yeah. Right.

Translation = They have been copied, sold to highest bidders for content, and now the trail of money followers must go cold.

[blackdog]

People don’t understand. They record everything because it’s cheaper and easier. Then they run algorithms on any individual or group based on a request to do so.

[fella]

If you think any of those calls are really going to be deleted your as smart Maxine Waters. They’ll just store them somewhere for later usage.

[gibsonguy]

What BS. Even small enterprises have backup and redundancy. It’s an insult to the people’s intelligence. F’n Sessions.

[a fool in paradise]

Yep, it’s queer that 2015 is the time that the Rats first put spies on the Trump team.

[cgbg]

Disinformation is a critical element of any intelligence agency operation.

If they are talking they are lying.

Any media outlet that quotes them approvingly is generating fake news.

[cgbg]

People don’t understand. They record everything because it’s cheaper and easier. Then they run algorithms on any individual or group based on a request to do so.

Cool. Where do I send in my request for all of Hillary's data for the last ten years? ;-)

[joshua c]

Destroying evidence?

[Vaduz]

First names to be deleted start with letter C,O,R,M,B, you know the rest all that are guilty.

[blackdog]

Exactly.

[truthkeeper]

CYA in advance.

Maybe the NSA is planning a Clinton house fire.

[CincyRichieRich]

Who is head of NSA and why isn’t PDJT put his guy in charge?

[trisham]

Agency executives
General Paul M. Nakasone, U.S. Army, Director
George C. Barnes, Deputy Director

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency#Organizational_structure

https://www.nsa.gov

[ridesthemiles]

Destroying Evidence?

[Conservative4Life]

my first thought as well

When did they start collecting this data?

[YogicCowboy]

Random... Not.

[freefdny]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2CVTH3_Bf-I
The Simpsons had it figured out.