NSA considered ditching tracking Americans’ phone records before Snowden revelations

[TheHumanLeague]

NSA considered ditching tracking Americans’ phone records before Snowden revelations

NSA officials were weighing costs before Snowden revealed secret programme

PUBLISHED : Monday, 30 March, 2015, 10:50pm
UPDATED : Monday, 30 March, 2015, 10:50pm

Associated Press in Washington

Responding to widespread criticism, US President Barack Obama proposed last year that the NSA stop collecting the records, but instead request them when needed in terrorism investigations from telephone companies, which tend to keep them for 18 months. Photo: Reuters

The US National Security Agency considered abandoning its secret programme to collect and store American phone records in the months before Edward Snowden revealed the practice, current and former intelligence officials said, because some officials had believed that the costs outweighed the meagre counterterrorism benefits.

The proposal to kill the programme was circulating among top managers but had not yet reached the desk of General Keith Alexander, then the NSA director, according to current and former intelligence officials who would not be quoted because the details are sensitive.

Two former senior NSA officials said they doubted Alexander would have approved it.

The behind-the-scenes NSA concerns, which have not been reported previously, could be relevant as Congress decides whether to renew or modify the collection of phone records when the law authorising it expires in June.

The internal critics pointed out that the already high costs of vacuuming up and storing the "to and from" information from nearly every domestic landline call were rising, the system was not capturing most cellphone calls, and the programme was not central to unraveling terrorist plots, the officials said.

After the programme was disclosed, civil liberties advocates attacked it, saying the records could give a secret intelligence agency a road map to Americans' private activities.

Responding to widespread criticism, US President Barack Obama proposed last year that the NSA stop collecting the records, but instead request them when needed in terrorism investigations from telephone companies, which tend to keep them for 18 months.