Spy agency NSA collected over 500 million phone call records
The United States' National Security Agency (NSA) collected over 500 million phone call records of Americans last year, more than triple of what was gathered in 2016, said a US intelligence agency report. The spike in collection of call records, coupled with an overall increase in surveillance hauls, have made privacy advocates worried. Incidentally, the spike happened despite legislation aiming to curb such powers.
What the collection of phone records entail
The sharp increase in the collection of phone call records from 151 million in 2016 to 534 million in 2017 occurred during the second year of a new surveillance system established at the NSA after US lawmakers passed a law in 2015 aimed at curbing surveillance powers. Records collected include the phone numbers and time of a call or text message, not their contents.
The intelligence community isn't transparent about increasing surveillance
"The intelligence community's transparency has yet to extend to explaining dramatic increases in their collection," said Robyn Greene, policy counsel at the Washington-based Open Technology Institute that focuses on digital issues.
Alarming and mysterious increase in NSA surveillance
Despite the spike, the 2017 collection of call records still remains substantially less than the estimated billions of call records which NSA collected under its old surveillance system. The practice was exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013. Yet, the overall increases in surveillance hauls even in the post-Snowden era is somewhat mysterious, and possibly rather alarming.
Number of foreigners under surveillance has also increased
Additionally, the report also showed that there was an increase in the number of foreigners outside the US who were targeted under a warrant-less internet surveillance programme under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The figure had risen to 129,080 in 2017 from 106,469 in 2016. From 2013, surveillance under Section 702 has seen a 45% cumulative rise in five years.
