A National Security Agency program that reviews private citizens’ calls and text messages and was exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden has quietly ended under the Trump administration, according to The New York Times.
The program was introduced under the George W. Bush administration in response to 9-11 in order to monitor links between known terrorism suspects and their associates and to prevent terrorist attacks, which it has never done.
After Snowden exposed the invasive nature of the program in 2013, Congress ended it and replaced it with the U.S.A. Freedom Act in 2015. That program is set to expire in December, but it is unclear if the Trump administration will even request its renewal, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s national security adviser Luke Murry said in a recent Lawfare podcast.
A spokesperson for McCarthy pushed back on Murry’s claims, telling the Times the remarks were not reflective of what Congress or the White House plans to do with the program.
Read the full Times report here.
