US Started Keeping Secret Records of International Telephone Calls In 1992

schwit1 writes Starting in 1992, the Justice Department amassed logs of virtually all telephone calls from the USA to as many as 116 countries. The now-discontinued operation, carried out by the DEA's intelligence arm, was the government's first known effort to gather data on Americans in bulk, sweeping up records of telephone calls made by millions of U.S. citizens regardless of whether they were suspected of a crime. It was a model for the massive phone surveillance system the NSA launched to identify terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks. That dragnet drew sharp criticism that the government had intruded too deeply into Americans' privacy after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked it to the news media two years ago. More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and intelligence officials described the details of the Justice Department operation to USA TODAY. Most did so on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the intelligence program, part of which remains classified. The operation had 'been approved at the highest levels of Federal law enforcement authority,' including then-Attorney General Janet Reno and her deputy, Eric Holder.

Comments

Well...

[burtosis]

What's the point if you can't collect pictures of people's junk? Also, given how teens act today, wouldn't the NSA have the largest collection of pedo in the world? Apparently the NSA does think of the children.

Re:1992, eh?

[damn_registrars]

Clinton took office in January of 1993

Shh! Don't tell that to the slashdot conservatives. You know that, I know that, wikipedia knows that, but to the conservative narrative 1992 is squarely in the Clinton years and everything bad that happened during it is 100% his fault.

Just as everything that happened between 2000 (when Clinton left office) and now is Obama's fault.

Re:Nope

[bill_mcgonigle]

which detailed how the NSA were intercepting all international calls by methods including replicating the phone-company satellite base-stations

That's crazy tinfoil-hattery libertarian nutzo Echelon talk, dude.