Friday, June 21, 2013

Senators say NSA phone records played little role in stopping terror plots...

The National Security Agency’s massive collection of Americans’ phone records has “played little or no role” in the disruption of dozens of terrorist plots, contrary to Obama administration assertions, said two U.S. senators who have access to classified information.

In a statement Wednesday, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) disputed recent statements by senior administration officials that a top-secret NSA surveillance program to collect tens of millions of domestic calling records from U.S. phone companies has helped thwart more than 50 terrorist plots in the United States and abroad.

The phone-records program, authorized under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act, was revealed this month after a leak to the Guardian newspaper. Details of a separate program to collect e-mails and other Internet content of foreign targets were also disclosed this month following leaks to the Guardian and The Washington Post.

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But, they said, “saying ‘these programs’ have disrupted ‘dozens of terrorist plots’ is misleading if the bulk phone-records collection is actually providing little or no unique value.”

They said it is unclear why federal agents do not simply obtain a court order for the phone records of individual terrorist suspects rather than creating a massive government database of records. Full story...

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