Report: The Justice Department kept secret records of Americans' foreign calls for more than a decade
The Justice Department kept a secret database tracking U.S. calls to and from foreign countries for more than a decade, according to a new court filing.
The program began in the 1990s and was shut down in August 2013, sources told The Wall Street Journal. The specific countries recorded in the database aren't specified, nor is the total number of countries.
The existence of the database came up in a Thursday case filing regarding a man who conspired to illegally export electronic goods to Iran. A Drug Enforcement Administration official said in the filing that the agency used administrative subpoenas to collect foreign phone call metadata.
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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.
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