NSA Abandoned Project To Track Cell Phone Locations

barlevg writes "The Washington Post reports that NSA director Gen. Keith Alexander testified before the Senate about an experimental NSA program to track location data from cell phones in 2011, but abandoned it because it lacked 'the operational value' it needed. It was not made clear what 'operation value' they were seeking. Alexander said, 'the data collected were never available for intelligence analysis purposes.' He added, 'This may be something that is a future requirement for the country, but it is not right now because when we identify a number we can give that to the FBI, [who can a warrant for the data it needs]. That’s the reason we stopped in 2011.''"

The real reason

[barlevg]

If it's anything like location data in Twitter, the reason they probably stopped is because the majority of location-tagged information exchanges from cell phones are made by teens, and the NSA was probably sick of sifting through conversations debating the relative merits of Justin Bieber vs. One Direction.

Not a big deal

[BenSchuarmer]

It's just that the data wasn't as accurate as the data that they get from the microchips they've implanted in our dental fillings.