14 DAY TRIAL // In an effort to make everyone feel better about the ongoing telephony metadata collection program, officials with knowledge of the policy revealed that the NSA only collected about 30 percent of all daily data.
According to the Washington Post, one source revealed that, a few years ago, in 2006, data collection was actually closer to 100 percent of all calls made in the United States, but the percentage has decreased by last summer.
On the other hand, it looks like the NSA is actually working to restore the previous levels of data collection.
Several boards have said so far that the NSA metadata collection program is actually not effective at all in the purpose the agency says – locating terrorists and preventing attacks. In fact, there’s no evidence whatsoever that there has been any such case since 9/11.
“We recommend that legislation should be enacted that terminates the storage of bulk telephony meta-data by the government under section 215 (of the US Patriot Act), and transitions as soon as reasonably possible to a system in which such meta-data is held instead either by private providers or by a private third party,” concluded a board named by the White House to review the NSA’s activity.
While more and more voices are calling for the metadata collection program to be stopped, Obama announced a series of reforms that don’t really change much. According to him, the NSA will not stop the metadata program, but it will no longer be allowed to hold the data. That doesn’t really help things, even though the intelligence agency will be required to get a warrant in order to access the data that will be stored by unnamed third parties.
Considering, however, that the court that will sign off on the warrants is the secretive FISA court that hasn’t said no to the NSA in years, this basically means that nothing will change.