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AT&T Gave NSA a Billion Cell Phone Records a Day

CBN

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Telecom giant AT&T pioneered a data collection program that gathered hundreds of billions of Internet records for the National Security Agency.

The Fairview Program started in 2003, according to a report from The New York Times.

The NSA said the the program was like having a "live presence on the global net" for collecting data. It sent more than 1 million emails a day to NSA headquarters.

The story also claims that AT&T began providing 1.1 billion cell phone records a day to the spy agency in 2011.

Intelligence officials have long claimed that most data collection dealt only with landline phones.

Details of the partnership between AT&T and the government came from documents leaked by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden. It's well known that U.S. telecom companies work with the intelligence community.

However, the documents reveal that the NSA considered its relationship with AT&T unique and its officals were "highly collaborative."

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