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Communications Privacy United States

NSA Purges Hundreds of Millions of Call and Text Records (nytimes.com) 107

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
schwit1 shares a report: The National Security Agency has purged hundreds of millions of records logging phone calls and texts that it had gathered from American telecommunications companies since 2015, the agency has disclosed. It had realized that its database was contaminated with some files the agency had no authority to receive. The agency began destroying the records on May 23, it said in a statement. Officials had discovered "technical irregularities" this year in its collection from phone companies of so-called call record details, or metadata showing who called or texted whom and when, but not what they said. The agency had collected the data from a system it created under the USA Freedom Act. Congress enacted that law in 2015 to end and replace a once-secret program that had systematically collected Americans' domestic calling records in bulk. The National Security Agency uses the data to analyze social links between people in a hunt for hidden associates of known terrorism suspects.
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NSA Purges Hundreds of Millions of Call and Text Records More

NSA Purges Hundreds of Millions of Call and Text Records

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  • Of course... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @10:29AM (#56879550)

    Sure. The NSA is purging data- just like Kim is purging North Korea's nuclear program. Both are very believable.

    I'm sure the NSA is just making a show of deleting data whilst backing it up in another database with more stringent security needed to get access to.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      So, basically you are talking out of your ass and have no information on the matter.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How many of those calls have info about HRC, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Rosenstein etc.? I believe they'll delete data to protect them.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by tkotz ( 3646593 )

      That would be a pretty big strike against a future plausible deniability defense against political action. The only way the NSA has been able to stay as free of impact as they have is by claiming they didn't think what they were doing was illegal. If they start keeping two sets of books that becomes a lot harder to swallow.

    • Frankly, if I got conflicting stories from Emperor Kim and the NSA, equally plausible, and one (and only one) of them could be true, I'm not sure which I'd believe. Probably the one from His Rotund Highness.

  • They may well be removing these records from their usual online system, but they're not going to go back and destroy tapes. And I'll bet a dollar that they're not taking these records offline, just taking them out of the system most likely to be audited.

  • was eliminated by moving it into a different fridge when the inspectors called.

  • Destroying evidence (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DCFusor ( 1763438 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @10:43AM (#56879682) Homepage
    Against themselves and other deep-state players. That's just the biz as usual. We know where their sympathies lie by their sedition against the current government (which you don't have to approve of to see happening)...Hell, Clapper even admitted lying to congress, and Brennan...holy cow, what an obviously warped person. Things rot from the head down, most often. They're just wiping it, like with a cloth.

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @11:26AM (#56879958)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I'd mod you up if I hadn't commented. Yep...They "have kids to feed", fear, partisanship, war help with that, and it's obvous they've succumbed to temptation. No party is going to stop them as there's plenty dirt to go around and who'd have that if not these very people - who we PAY to lie for a living. So....I don't see a good way to do much about it, other than try and get people awake...sooner or later it'll be too embarrassing to admit you work for one of these outfits who profit from deception, blac

    • Fox News Channel viewer detected. Abort.

      • Heh, Fox is wimpy and entertainment for the lower IQ range....if that's all you got, come at me bro - I've been around watching this shit longer than Fox by a huge margin.

        • That is all. The NSA isn't what you see in movies. It's just a bunch of drones doing "their jobs".

          Snowden should tell you all you ever needed to know about how ultra awesome the CIA/NSA are. The only thing that makes them look competent is that people are terrified to cross them.

    • >We know where their sympathies lie by their sedition against the current government

      The NSA is practicing sedition? If they were, it's likely they'd be releasing some phone calls instead of deleting old emails.

      • They leak what they want to via plausibly deniable sources, just like always - and you don't have to look hard to find them at all. Gosh, was everyone here born last week? This is not a partisan thing at all, it's an un-elected and difficult to discipline bureaucracy that is out of control, and has been for many decades.n Which now has the power to gather dirt on the dirtiest people on earth - politicians of all stripes higher than dog-catcher - who are also the main people who even care, because, unlik

  • Nice Spin (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Nice spin on this story. What they actually did was destroy evidence of their criminal wiretapping enterprise.

    These people belong in jail.

    • What they actually did was destroy evidence of their criminal wiretapping enterprise.

      I do believe you hit the nail on the head. The jig is up and they're trying to CYA.

      I'd mod you up myself but I'm out of mod points just now,

  • NSA claim (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bagofbeans ( 567926 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @10:51AM (#56879762)

    So, we have weasel words. Not deleting prior to 2015 CDRs. Not deleting CDRs post 2015 collected under a different permission.

    NSA Reports Data Deletion
    June 28, 2018

    Consistent with NSA's core values of respect for the law, accountability, integrity, and transparency we are making public notice that on May 23, 2018, NSA began deleting all call detail records (CDRs) acquired since 2015 under Title V of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)

    The Government relies on Title V of FISA to obtain CDRs, which do not include the content of any calls. In accordance with this law, the Government obtains these CDRs, following a specific court-authorized process.

    NSA is deleting the CDRs because several months ago NSA analysts noted technical irregularities in some data received from telecommunications service providers. These irregularities also resulted in the production to NSA of some CDRs that NSA was not authorized to receive. Because it was infeasible to identify and isolate properly produced data, NSA concluded that it should not use any of the CDRs. Consequently, NSA, in consultation with the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, decided that the appropriate course of action was to delete all CDRs. NSA notified the Congressional Oversight Committees, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and the Department of Justice of this decision. The Department of Justice, in turn, notified the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The root cause of the problem has since been addressed for future CDR acquisitions, and NSA has reviewed and revalidated its intelligence reporting to ensure that the reports were based on properly received CDRs.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Consistent with NSA's core values of respect for the law, accountability, integrity, and transparency...

      Yeah I stopped reading there. Everything that follows can be assumed to be false or at least intentionally misleading.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        8 hops of domestic and global collection clogged the computers. So it was back to an authorized 7 hops of collect it all.

  • NOOOOOO! (Score:5, Funny)

    by RavenLrD20k ( 311488 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @10:58AM (#56879800) Journal
    Well... there go all my backups!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      Those are safe. They needed more disk for Windows 10 and deleting all that stuff there was just enough space.

  • NSA says:
    "Oh noes, the cattle (er, we mean citizens) have had their privacy rights (LOL!) brought to their attention (thanks, Zuckerberg!) and since we've had the market cornered on violating people's privacy for decades, we're in their crosshairs now, what ever shall we do!?"

    "..never fear! We'll throw them a bone and (claim we) delete a bunch of (old, useless) texts and emails. Just to make it sound more legit, we'll claim we never had the right to have some of them in the first place. The cattle (*cough* sorry, 'Citizens') are gullible and will believe we're on the up-and-up and are taking responsibility for our misdeeds (LOL)."

    Good game, NSA, good game.. but the guillotine is waiting for you; you're on The List. It's just a matter of time.

  • Trust (Score:3)

    by Tenebrousedge ( 1226584 ) <tenebrousedge@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Monday July 02, 2018 @12:06PM (#56880260)

    Anyone's trust in the NSA should be extremely well informed and strictly circumscribed. However, this is the first indication that NSA has any sense of duty to the American people, or respect for the law, so I'm not going to shit on them for it. The larger failure is Congress' inability to defend the rights of American citizens.

  • We already made backups elsewhere.

    Nice try covering up for Russia.

  • Translation: "We looked at all this info carefully, and we determined that it has no value to the intelligence community, so we're deleting it".
    Secondary translation: "We know that this collection program is going to leak out eventually, so we're getting ahead of the story by announcing it".

    The NSA is a spy agency. Spy agencies will sometimes operate within the clear bounds of the law, sometimes they dwell in the very large grey area that sits between full legality and full criminality, and sometimes

  • Lacking any third-party verification, that headline should be "Says They Have Purged" instead of "Purges". Simply stating as fact whatever claim the gov't makes, without any attempt at verification, is poor journalism.

  • MISDIRECTION. Be not DISTRACTED. (Score:3)

    by TheRealHocusLocus ( 2319802 ) on Monday July 02, 2018 @01:57PM (#56881268)

    June 25 2018: The Intercept draws attention to buildings [theintercept.com] they allege contain NSA splitter-taps taps on communications networks, and especial cooperation by AT&T.
    June 28 2018: NSA jumps the shark releasing 'limited hang out' claiming they oopsied 685 million 'records' [thedailybeast.com] and are deleting them like good Boy Scouts.

    The records are supposed to gather attention away from the buildings and the idea of full intercept of gathering of communications. It's a shell game, and you're supposed to think "they were naughty but are sorry and they took care of it." Watch now as the 685 million records eclipse the prior story and the news networks start talking about 'records' and not 'taps'. Mission accomplished.

    Senators do this too. Ask them a question about buildings or taps, or the infrastructure for continuous warrantless surveillance, and they'll pretend you asked them about that handy voluntary call record sharing program. Press firmly and they'll do it again. Press harder and they move on to the next question.

    More,
    >Reddit post on 5EYES and NSA splitters [reddit.com]
    > Things have got to change, But first, you gotta get mad! [slashdot.org]
    > NSA and the Desolation of Smaug [slashdot.org]
    > I am Sam. Uncle Sam I am. [slashdot.org]
    > I really hated Men In Black [slashdot.org]
    > Am I the first to suggest... BLACKMAIL?? [slashdot.org]
    > Sherlock Holmes: training wheels for NSA surveillance [slashdot.org]
    > Stick a fork in the Republic, it's done. HR4681/309 (failed submission) [slashdot.org]
    > The backbone, then (1980s) and now [slashdot.org]
    > Whatever happened to the 'old' NSA? Directive 18? [slashdot.org]
    > Last Wish: The Pact (dystopian fiction) [slashdot.org]

  • im sure they were going over how much "crap" they have and remove it for more storage than spending $100 million on more drives.

  • $0.50 army (Score:3)

    by Reverend Green ( 4973045 ) on Tuesday July 03, 2018 @01:57AM (#56884502)

    Whoa - the fifty cent armies are out in force for this one! 100+ idiotic posts arguing back & forth about TRUMP!!!!!11!!!! All posted by the same two astroturfers, using augmented trolling software to circumvent Slashdot's antispam features.

    Nice topic dilution, gentlemen - well done!
    https://cryptome.org/2012/07/g... [cryptome.org]

    BTW: does anyone know the name of the software tool(s) used by these astroturfers?

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