A key Republican senator charged Wednesday that the administration’s vaunted data mining project, which has prompted fears that millions of phone calls are being stored, is so poorly run and collects so little info that it’s practically worthless.
Less than a day after the administration gave the full Senate a secret briefing on its domestic surveillance program targeting terrorists, Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee said he was “shocked” at how bad the program is and how little it collects that Americans instead should be worried that it isn’t protecting them against attack — not spying on their phones.
He said the 90-minute briefing is also likely to shift the focus, at least in the Senate, away from legislation limiting surveillance to beefing it up.
Sen. Bob Corker. Photos by Michael Bonfigli/The Christian Science Monitor
Corker called it a “game changer,” and added, “I’m just going to say to you that I think there was an ‘aha’ moment yesterday for people on both sides of the aisle when we realized how little data is being collected. At how little data is being collected. It was a shock.”
He raised the issue during a media breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “It’s almost malpractice. Malpractice is the only word I can use to describe the amount of data that’s being collected in the metadata program,” Corker added.
“It’s beyond belief how little data is part of the program,” he said.
He described it as “ineptly carried out,” and nearly worthless.
Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the result of the briefing may be an short term extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that may lead to calls for a more aggressive program.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
