The National Security Agency considered shutting down a phone surveillance program shortly before a whistleblower took action and thrust the federal agency's potentially illegally spying activities into the mainstream media and public eye, claims a new report.
Agency leaders, whom "believed the costs outweighed the meager counterterrorism benefits," kept the overt program active despite concerns about potential discovery. That was despite a memo shared among NSA managers that suggested shuttering the spying program.
Meanwhile, during all the debate over keeping the phone surveillance in place, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden was getting ready to rock the world by releasing stolen documents on the global spying program and his move would set off one of the hottest debates on a global front regarding U.S. surveillance activity.
The report notes that NSA leaders were concerned about "public outrage if the program ever was revealed," and rightly so given the events since Snowden went public. Since the revelations, which are continuing as Snowden is still providing journalists with documents, the agency has been busy defending itself to the public and lawmaker oversight committees, claiming the spying was all in the name of homeland security and ferreting out terrorism activities in the U.S. and abroad.
The insight about what NSA officials were considering could pay a role in the decision lawmakers will make early this summer regarding the federal law regarding phone data collection that allowed the NSA to conduct such activities.
The agency's surveillance is under big scrutiny by privacy and civil liberty organizations that believe the program encroached on American's privacy. In response the White House Administration, at the start of 2014, made a recommendation that the agency stop collecting such data as the records could be attained through telecoms. President Obama's approach does have some legislative support and some lawmakers want deeper detail on the NSA program.
"This is consistent with our experience with the intelligence community," said Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich. "Even when we have classified briefings, it's like a game of 20 questions and we can't get to the bottom of anything."
Obama's White House task force investigating the NSA's surveillance actions featured a former deputy CIA leader, Michael Morell, and Richard Clarke, a former White House counter terrorism adviser.
"We cannot discount the risk, in light of the lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking," the report said.
Yet not everyone is against what the NSA had been doing and more than a few lawmakers believe the activity is not only legal under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, but valuable.
