Disputed N.S.A. Phone Program Is Shut Down, Aide Says

The New York Times ^ | March 4, 2019 | Charlie Savage

[BlackAdderess]

The National Security Agency has quietly shut down a system that analyzes logs of Americans’ domestic calls and texts, according to a senior Republican congressional aide, halting a program that has touched off disputes about privacy and the rule of law since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The agency has not used the system in months, and the Trump administration might not ask Congress to renew its legal authority, which is set to expire at the end of the year, according to the aide, Luke Murry, the House minority leader’s national security adviser. “Technical irregularities” had contaminated the agency’s database with message logs it had no authority to collect.

[metmom]

Some good news for a change.

[BlackAdderess]

This is just phone logs and it already has been a scandal for the past two years for people on POTUS’s campaign. Remember the unmaskings?

[gaijin]

Computers get hot; Utah is cool overall, cold in the winter, easy access to big airport at SLC, many foreign speakers cuz Mormons go abroad On Mission to non-romance language places.

[BlackAdderess]

This particular program has been a major player in the circus that has consumed the Trump administration. It somehow doesn’t surprise me that a program that has not contributed to our security and has in fact greatly eroded that security would land on the chopping block.

[Sgt_Schultze]

My thought exactly. A re-brand, a retired program name only, or a more efficient means of accomplishing the same task. These are more likely what has happened.

[I want the USA back]

Government eagerly seizes every opportunity to stick a probe up our XXX and repress us some more.

Shut this down, but do you want to bet that there is another program that’s alive and running?

[Georgia Girl 2]

Good. Finally!

[BlackAdderess]

Considering that this one kept breaking the law just by running, and that they couldn’t fix it, and that the Obama administration used it to bedevil the Trump campaign...

If they found a way to make a program work they would still have to reauthorize, and they aren’t.

I think this is a rare victory in a sea of encroachment.

[ManHunter]

I hope you realize that none of these programs ever goes away; STELLAR WIND is just an expansion of ECHELON and CARNIVORE. Does anyone remember TIA - Total Information Awareness, a DoD data-mining program, the objectionable elements of which were supposedly discontinued? Well, maybe not discontinued, but...

[Red Badger]

If in fact it has.

When has any government ever given up power voluntarily?..........................

[Buckeye McFrog]

yeah, SURE it has

And we should believe them WHY, exactly?

[null and void]

BINGO!

[caver]

I don’t believe it.

[Paal Gulli]

"If they shut that 1 down that just means they have a new undiscovered one already put in place!"

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Monkey Face]

But have they really quit spying on us?

[RedStateRocker]

Without a warrant, law enforcement should have absolutely NO right to collect any information whatsoever other than interviewing witnesses or other basic police work. No listening, no reading, no decrypting of any US citizen without a -hopefully skeptical- judge giving the say-so, and even then only for a set time and to acquire specific information.

[Jmouse007]

Right... “trust us, it’s gone.”

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

.....And we should believe what the NSA says because.....?

[zeugma]

If they shut that 1 down that just means they have a new undiscovered one already put in place!

It can also simply mean that the program was renamed. "Oh, that program doesn't exist anymore".

[Karliner]

These things just shutter a few doors and go deeper. Usually. Back door assets keep them going.