Sorry if posted in a previous thread frens
"Disputed NSA Phone Program is Shut Down, Aide says"
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/nsa-phone-records-program-shut-down.html
>>The phone records program traces back to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks when the Bush administration created the secret Stellarwind surveillance program. One component involved the bulk collection of logs of Americans’ domestic phone calls.
Mueller and new AG Barr were both up to their necks in it:
>>To keep the program secret, the DEA sought not to use the information as evidence in criminal prosecutions or in its justification for warrants or other searches. Instead, its Special Operations Division passed the data to field agents as tips to help them find new targets or focus existing investigations, a process approved by Justice Department lawyers. Many of those tips were classified because the DEA phone searches drew on other intelligence data.
That practice sparked a furor when the Reuters news agency reported in 2013 that the DEA trained agents to conceal the sources of those tips from judges and defense lawyers. Reuters said the tips were based on wiretaps, foreign intelligence and a DEA database of telephone calls gathered through routine subpoenas and search warrants.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/04/07/dea-bulk-telephone-surveillance-operation/70808616/