NSA to Purge Database of Phone Records Collected Under Mass Surveillance - Nextgov.com
The National Security Agency will purge all phone data collected during the operation of its expiring bulk surveillance program by the start of next year pending ongoing litigation, the government announced Monday.
“As soon as possible, NSA will destroy the Section 215 bulk telephony metadata upon expiration of its litigation preservation obligations,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, referring to a provision of the Patriot Act, said in a statement. “Analytic access” to those records, which go back five years, will end Nov. 29, and they will be destroyed three months later.
The decision comes as a victory for privacy advocates, who worried that the winding down of the mass surveillance program under a reform law enacted earlier this year could have allowed the NSA to continue to access phone records it already had collected. The phone dragnet was the first and most controversial program exposed by Edward Snowden two years ago.
More: NSA to Purge Database of Phone Records Collected Under Mass Surveillance - Nextgov.com