‘NSA continues to operate with impunity’: Scott Rickard

American political analyst Scott Rickard has said that the US National Security Agency would continue its spying activities with impunity.

“The NSA continues to operate with impunity in having just massive amount of access to information. At the same time, the intelligence communities and the providers of the actual technology are making money,” Rickard said in a phone interview with Press TV on Monday.

Current and former intelligence officials claimed that the NSA spying program incurred considerable costs in terms of money and civil liberties.

The NSA program aimed at collecting and saving American calling records also did little if anything to stop terrorism, according to the Associated Press citing the officials.

The spying agency considered ending its secret program several months before whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed documents exposing the practice, according to the report by the Associated Press.

Some NSA officials were ready to abandon the bulk collection in 2013 even though they knew they would lose the ability to search a database of US calling records, said the unnamed intelligence officials.

“Recently, there’s been a report coming out that the NSA’s spying program was quite expensive and there were discussions on shutting it down in the past,” Rickard said. “The current conditions are far beyond that. When you look at the amount of information that’s been gathered both on the internet and the phones, it’s just tremendous.”

“With the Intelligence Authorization Act this year 2015, the US government has basically been given just unprecedented access of surveillance without any warrant,” he added.

AGB/AGB