Penelope
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- Jul 15, 2014
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WASHINGTON – The Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr launched a vast surveillance program that gathered records of innocent Americans’ international phone calls without first conducting a review of whether it was legal, the department’s inspector general concluded Thursday.
It happened in 1992, the last time Barr served as attorney general.
The secret program, run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, ultimately gathered billions of records of nearly all phone calls from the United States to 116 countries, with little oversight from Congress or the courts, a USA TODAY investigation found. It provided a blueprint for far broader phone-data surveillance the government launched after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The Justice Department’s inspector general said both the DEA and the Justice Department “failed to conduct a comprehensive legal analysis” of its authority to gather those records.
The program was the government’s first known effort to gather records on Americans in bulk, sweeping up information related to millions of Americans regardless of whether they were suspected of a crime. Attorney General Eric Holder ordered the DEA to halt the collection in 2013, after leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden sparked an uproar about the government’s data dragnets.
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also he wanted mass incarceration.
It happened in 1992, the last time Barr served as attorney general.
The secret program, run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, ultimately gathered billions of records of nearly all phone calls from the United States to 116 countries, with little oversight from Congress or the courts, a USA TODAY investigation found. It provided a blueprint for far broader phone-data surveillance the government launched after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The Justice Department’s inspector general said both the DEA and the Justice Department “failed to conduct a comprehensive legal analysis” of its authority to gather those records.
The program was the government’s first known effort to gather records on Americans in bulk, sweeping up information related to millions of Americans regardless of whether they were suspected of a crime. Attorney General Eric Holder ordered the DEA to halt the collection in 2013, after leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden sparked an uproar about the government’s data dragnets.
Justice under AG Barr began vast surveillance program without legal review – in 1992, inspector general finds
The Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr launched a vast telephone surveillance program in 1992 without a full legal review.
www.usatoday.com
also he wanted mass incarceration.