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NSA Collected 500 Million US Call Records In 2017, Says Report (reuters.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the great-gatherings dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The U.S. National Security Agency collected more than 500 million phone call records of Americans last year, more than triple gathered in 2016, a U.S. intelligence agency report released on Friday said. The sharp increase to 534 million call records from 151 million occurred during the second full year of a new surveillance system established at the spy agency after U.S. lawmakers passed a law in 2015 that sought to limit its ability to collect such records in bulk. The reason for the spike was not immediately clear. The metadata records collected by the NSA include the numbers and time of a call, but not its content.

10 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Metadata is data by Arzaboa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Its fairly easy to create a set of connections and circles based on meta-data. One person is picked off for something, now there is an excuse to investigate everyone that person ever knew.

    --
    "It's all in the timing" -- David Ives

  2. Robodial by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How many of these are the Robo-dial calls?

    Maybe the NSA could do something useful and use this data to hunt-down those responsible for the ROBO-dial epidemic?

    1. Re:Robodial by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      They don't have to hunt them down, they knew that answer in realtime.

      You probably just don't understand who the NSA is, what their job is, or who has access to their information.

      (The answers are "the military," "military electronic surveillance," and "the military.)

      Unfortunately, most of the people blathering on the internet mistook them for being law enforcement, or somehow connected to the civilian gubermint. But no. They know who the robo-dialers are, and if the military decides to conduct air strikes to solve the problem, then somebody would finally use that knowledge. Otherwise, no, it just sits in a database.

  3. Don't Thread On Me by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Funny

    The reason for the spike was not immediately clear.

    I'm pretty sure most of the additional 380 million phone records collected were Trump calling his various attorneys.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  4. 95% spam by Dances+With+Sharks · · Score: 2

    The reason for the spike is that 19/20 of the calls to my phone are spam. You'd think the NSA could use this info to track down and terminate the spammers with extreme prejudice.

  5. I thought we were supposed to be afraid of them? by argStyopa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Um, 500 million is...nothing? You're saying they collected an average of what, about 1.5 calls per American in all of 2017?

    Who gives a shit?

    --
    -Styopa
  6. Riiiiight. by laughingcoyote · · Score: 2

    The metadata records collected by the NSA include the numbers and time of a call, but not its content.

    ...until the next Snowden comes along and tells us they're lying again.

    --
    To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
  7. In this day and age by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Treat every interaction as if someone is watching, listening or recording at all times.
    This goes for everything you buy, write, speak, read, watch or listen to regardless of the medium.

    Ignore the fact that you think you're doing nothing wrong because what you think, doesn't matter.

    Today you may not be doing anything wrong, tomorrow the rules may change.

  8. Depends on your defenition of collect by mamba-mamba · · Score: 2

    This is pretty misleading. It relies on a perverse meaning of the word "collect." Anyone reading Slashdot should probably be aware that the NSA stores virtually all calls, both metadata and content (and lots of web traffic, too) in the giant Utah data center. Their definition of "collect" is more like "access." If the information is not accessed by a query, in the parlance of the NSA, it has not been collected. The rationale is that actually accessing the data requires a court authorization of some sort (in theory, anyway). But the act of storing the data is, itself, is not a 4th amendment violation. Obviously this rationale is bullshit, but that is the operative thinking.

    --
    By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
  9. Re:Just asking... by mamba-mamba · · Score: 2

    The existence of the database is a danger to everyone in America. Despite what this report says, it is obvious that the Utah Data Center is actually recording essentially all internet traffic, including tweets, comments, slashdot posts, full voice recordings of all calls placed by all people, call metadata, emails, etc. When they say that data was "collected" what they mean is that they got a warrant and then accessed the data. But the data is already sitting there in Utah.

    The very existence of that database is a crime and an affront and an obvious violation of the 4th amendment.

    --
    By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.