MOSCOW, December 7 (Sputnik) — On November 29 the NSA ended its bulk collection of US citizens' phone records that was authorized by the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
"We’ve studied this issue and we found that the bulk data collection program didn’t catch any terrorists and didn’t prevent any attacks," Paul told the MSNBC television channel.
The Kentucky senator added that collecting the phone metadata of US citizens had made the country more prone to terror attacks, as the government was "getting lost in the haystack" of records.
In 2013, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked some 1.7 million classified US government documents detailing the widespread secret mass electronic surveillance programs conducted by the NSA and other US intelligence agencies.
