The National Security Agency collected last year three times the phone and text message records it did the year before, a new report said on Friday. Credit Sait Serkan Gurbuz/Reuters
New York Times: N.S.A. Triples Collection of Data From U.S. Phone Companies
WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency vacuumed up more than 534 million records of phone calls and text messages from American telecommunications providers like AT&T and Verizon last year — more than three times what it collected in 2016, a new report revealed on Friday.
Intelligence analysts are also more frequently searching for information about Americans within the agency’s expanding collection of so-called call detail records — telecom metadata logging who contacted whom and when, but not the contents of what they said.
The new report — an annual set of surveillance-related statistics issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — did not explain why the number of records increased so dramatically. But in an interview, Alex Joel, the office’s chief civil liberties officer, said the N.S.A. had not reinterpreted its legal authorities to change the way it collects such data.
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More News On The NSA Collecting Three Times The Phone And Text Message Records From U.S. Phone Companies Than It Did The Year Before
Spy agency NSA triples collection of U.S. phone records: official report -- Reuters
NSA collected more than 530M US call records in 2017 -- The Hill
NSA report discloses that the agency tripled its surveillance of Americans in 2017 -- Boing Boing
NSA triples spying rate on Americans’ phone calls, collects 530mn records in 2017 -- RT
