NSA Collecting Less Than 30 Percent of Americans’ Call Records
Published at
iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The National Security Agency, unable to keep up with rapidly increasing cell phone use, is collecting less than half of all Americans’ call records.
The Washington Post reports that while the NSA was able to collect “nearly all records” on Americans’ phone calls as recently as 2006, the agency has been able to keep records on under 30 percent of calls made as of last summer.
Still, the NSA hopes to seek court orders requiring records from a number of wireless companies be turned over to the government.
In January, President Obama asked the Justice Department to come up with a plan to move phone records from the government’s hands. The president did not specify what entity would hold metadata in the future, but he tasked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the intelligence community to develop a plan by March 28, when the program is up for reauthorization, to move metadata out of the control of the NSA.
The Washington Post says that the actual percentage of records being gathered is “somewhere between 20 and 30 percent,” which still represents tens of billions of records over the past five years.
Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio