In a written follow-up statement to the Associated Press, the NSA said it is “following a specific court-authorized process,” but technical irregularities resulted in the production of some call records that the NSA “was not authorized to receive.”
The NSA faced a legal battle surrounding its Internet surveillance data collection program in 2017, when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union could move forward.
David Kris, a member of the Justice Department during the Obama administration, told the New York Times that the agency’s announcement represents a “failure” of the Obama administration to properly implement the Freedom Act, a surveillance law passed in 2015 after the controversial Patriot Act expired.
That seems like kind of a big deal to have happened under a “remarkably scandal-free” administration.