YIKES

$100 Million NSA Phone Program Yielded Only One Investigation

The program provided two unique leads and one “foreign intelligence investigation” over the course of several years.

A $100 million National Security Agency program that analyzed the logs of domestic calls and texts of Americans yielded a single investigation between 2015 and 2019, The New York Times reports. The program uncovered new information that the FBI didn't already have only twice, with one of the instances leading to a “foreign intelligence investigation” after uncovering new information about a telephone number. A report provided to Congress about the program did not disclose the subject matter of the probe and did not discuss the investigation's outcome. The high expenses and low utility of the program reportedly led to its shuttering last year. This comes as lawmakers are weighing whether to allow the law that authorizes the NSA to use the program—the USA Freedom Act—to expire in March. The Trump administration has reportedly requested Congress to extend the law so the NSA could use the system in the future.