[Infowarrior] - NSA had test project to collect data on Americans’ cellphone locations, director says

[Richard Forno]

NSA had test project to collect data on Americans’ cellphone locations, director says

By Ellen Nakashima

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-had-test-project-to-collect-data-on-americans-cellphone-locations-director-says/2013/10/02/65076278-2b71-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_print.html

The National Security Agency launched a test project to collect data about ordinary Americans’ cellphone locations in 2010 but later discontinued it, the agency’s director said Wednesday.

In response to questioning at a Senate hearing, Gen. Keith Alexander said the secret effort ended in 2011 and that the data collected were never available for intelligence analysis purposes.

“This may be something that may be a future requirement for the country,” Alexander told the Senate Judiciary Committee, “but it is not right now. . . . That’s the reason we stopped in 2011.”

The NSA received “samples” of cellphone location data “in order to test the ability of its systems to handle the data format, but that data was not used for any other purpose,” Alexander said, reading from a one-paragraph statement that was provided to the congressional intelligence committees.

In a brief interview after his testimony, Alexander said the NSA ended the program because it didn’t have “the operational value” it needed.”

The disclosure before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed recent speculation that the NSA had collected records showing the location of Americans’ cellphones. Alexander and James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, declined to answer questions on the issue at a hearing last month. At the time, Alexander said only that the intelligence community was not currently collecting so-called metadata on cellphone locations.

Following a series of leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, U.S. officials have faced growing questions about the kinds of information that they are collecting, particularly when it comes to data about Americans. The British newspaper the Guardian first disclosed that the NSA collects the records of phone calls placed by millions of Americans.

Intelligence officials have said such collection efforts are important counterterrorism measures and are legal. They have also said that the phone-records collection program does not mean the NSA is listening to most Americans’ phone calls.

The call database contains only phone numbers and the time and duration of calls, but no conversation content, subscriber names or cell site location.


© The Washington Post Company


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