EXCLUSIVE — Newly released details about a controversial mass surveillance program shed light on the pitfalls of government data acquisition programs as Congress debates reauthorizing a crucial statute.
The Drug Enforcement Administration collected massive amounts of telephone records for 20 years before the program was shuttered amid the Edward Snowden revelations in 2013. A heavily redacted inspector general’s report into the program was released six years later, a more forthcoming version of which has been obtained by the Washington Examiner.
While the Office of the Inspector General exists to provide oversight of government agencies, among the new details of the DEA program is that it refused to comply with parts of the IG investigation for seven months, apparently without facing consequences.
“It raises fundamental questions about whether you can really trust publicly released Inspector General reports,”
Read more…
