NSA killed system that sifted phone data legally

[h_bray at globe.com]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-
nsa517,0,5970724.story?page=1&coll=bal-home-headlines


Excerpt:

The National Security Agency developed a pilot program in the late 1990s
that would have enabled it to gather and analyze massive amounts of
communications data without running afoul of privacy laws. But after the
Sept. 11 attacks, it shelved the project -- not because it failed to
work
-- but because of bureaucratic infighting and a sudden White House
expansion of the agency's surveillance powers, according to several
intelligence officials.

The agency opted instead to adopt only one component of the program,
which
produced a far less capable and rigorous program. It remains the
backbone
of the NSA's warrantless surveillance efforts, tracking domestic and
overseas communications from a vast databank of information, and
monitoring
selected calls....

In what intelligence experts describe as rigorous testing of
ThinThread in
1998, the project succeeded at each task with high marks. For
example, its
ability to sort through massive amounts of data to find threat-related
communications far surpassed the existing system, sources said. It
also was
able to rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to
ensure
privacy.

But the NSA, then headed by Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, opted
against
both of those tools, as well as the feature that monitored potential
abuse
of the records. Only the data analysis facet of the program survived and
became the basis for the warrantless surveillance program.

The decision, which one official attributed to "turf protection and
empire
building," has undermined the agency's ability to zero in on potential
threats, sources say. In the wake of revelations about the agency's wide
gathering of U.S. phone records, they add, ThinThread could have
provided a
simple solution to privacy concerns.




Hiawatha Bray



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