Security News > 2020 > February > Newly Declassified Study Demonstrates Uselessness of NSA's Phone Metadata Program

A National Security Agency system that analyzed logs of Americans' domestic phone calls and text messages cost $100 million from 2015 to 2019, but yielded only a single significant investigation, according to a newly declassified study.

Only twice during that four-year period did the program generate unique information that the F.B.I. did not already possess, said the study, which was produced by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and briefed to Congress on Tuesday.

The privacy board, working with the intelligence community, got several additional salient facts declassified as part of the rollout of its report.

The report cited two investigations in which the National Security Agency produced reports derived from the program: its analysis of the Pulse nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., in June 2016 and of the November 2016 attack at Ohio State University by a man who drove his car into people and slashed at them with a machete.

It did not say whether the investigations into either of those attacks were connected to the two intelligence reports that provided unique information not already in the possession of the F.B.I. This program is legal due to the USA FREEDOM Act, which expires on March 15.

News URL

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/02/newly_declassif.html