The National Security Agency (NSA) has already started deleting the data, purging records relating to hundreds of millions of text messages and phone calls that proved to be useless, or had been data that they allegedly didn't have the authority to receive in the first place. The agency claims that the data had technical irregularities rendering it useless.

The data goes back several years to 2015, and with the removal of this enormous amount of data many have said that it's signaled a massive failure with the program.

Why?

Because all of that data hadn't proved to be useful, turned out to be essentially worthless, and now they will be looking to make more room for the same process to begin again. The NSA of course, disagrees with the assertion that they've failed. They say that they've spotted a problem and responded proactively by taking the “right steps” to fix it by deleting this data.

In 2017 the NSA tripled their data collection, with over 500 million records of text messages and calls.

The finger of blame in this data mess has also been pointed at the telecommunications companies who allegedly provided that data to the government. Some officials have asserted that those telecommunications giants acted with carelessness, potentially enabling the unlawful sharing of sensitive data.

The news even caught the attention of the president, who took to his Twitter account recently to call attention to the NSA removing all of this data,... Which comes only several months after he renewed the NSA surveillance contract for another 6 years back at the beginning of this year. That legislation was approved despite bipartisan efforts to introduce new and strict privacy limits to the data collection.

In less than a decade, the NSA has collected hundreds of millions of records relating to private communications over phone, e-mail, and text messages. And despite all of that record collecting, it hasn't had any record of helping to prevent major terror attacks from taking place. Perhaps large phishing expeditions, ,mass surveillance, isn't the most effective method to employ when trying to investigate potential threats.

“Has the US government intercepted your phone calls and/or text messages? You don’t know, which is why the surveillance state is so evil....

Instead of assuming your privacy is protected by the US Constitution, you must assume that the US government is listening in to your communications. The difference between these is the difference between freedom and tyranny.

The ultimate triumph of totalitarian states was not to punish citizens for opposing its tyranny, but to successfully cause them to censor themselves before even expressing 'subversive' thoughts.“- Ron Paul

When individuals have their private communications collected in such a manner, that's hardly the sort of reality you might expect to find in a 'free society'.

And worst of all is that the people themselves are having to fund this endeavor, they have cost taxpayers billions of dollars over the years. If they had been funded privately, then they'd have to provide much better results than they have been. An agency spending billions of dollars to collect essentially useless data over many years, is a combination that cannot continue to go on forever.

You don't keep people safe by violating their basic natural rights and sweeping-up massive amounts of their private communications.

Pic:
Pic 1 - via Verge
Pic 2 - Task&Purpose

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