General Discussion

kpete

(71,996 posts) Wed Nov 19, 2014, 07:53 PM Nov 2014

Obama Admin Considered Ending NSA Phone Records Program In '09, Opted Not To

There was a major debate within the NSA back in 2009 over whether to end the phone records collection program that was a key Snowden revelation back in 2013. The agency dissent was serious enough that the new Obama administration debated ending the program in 2009, but ultimately chose not to:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Years before Edward Snowden sparked a public outcry with the disclosure that the National Security Agency had been secretly collecting American telephone records, some NSA executives voiced strong objections to the program, current and former intelligence officials say. The program exceeded the agency's mandate to focus on foreign spying and would do little to stop terror plots, the executives argued.

The 2009 dissent, led by a senior NSA official and embraced by others at the agency, prompted the Obama administration to consider, but ultimately abandon, a plan to stop gathering the records.

The secret internal debate has not been previously reported. The Senate on Tuesday rejected an administration proposal that would have curbed the program and left the records in the hands of telephone companies rather than the government. That would be an arrangement similar to the one the administration quietly rejected in 2009.

The now-retired NSA official, a longtime code-breaker who rose to top management, had just learned in 2009 about the top secret program that was created shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He says he argued to then-NSA Director Keith Alexander that storing the calling records of nearly every American fundamentally changed the character of the agency, which is supposed to eavesdrop on foreigners, not Americans.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/obama-considered-ending-nsa-phone-surveilance