article_snippet.sent: This is also now the oldest known example of the government authorizing this level of tracking on unknowing citizens of the government.
article_snippet.sent: a program created for the Drug Enforcement Agency in 1992 also allowed agents to monitor calls the ruled out the possibility of foreign ties to the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building by American Timothy McVeigh.
article_snippet.sent: That decision came from Attorney General Eric Holder in September 2013, just months after Edward Snowden began systematically releasing classified information Edward Snowden obtained while working at the NSA, most notably documents that detailed the agency's reach, which while viewed by some as crucial and necessary, was seen by many as an Orwellian nightmare, specifically as the agency pertained to the freedoms and allowances the agency had been granted when the agency came to spying on Americans.
article_snippet.sent: The success of this new system impressed President George H.W. Bush, who spoke of the idea of 'sophisticated intelligence-gathering and Defense Department technology' in a 1989 speech, the first time these concepts had been mentioned by a president.
article_snippet.sent: The report did not reveal when exactly this happened, and if his granted this before or after his failed bid for reelection.
article_snippet.sent: The scope of what the records could be used for was heavily checked prior to 9/11, with all the data being used to investigate drug investigations, with the exception of a few incidents that were seen as potential threats to national security, like Oklahoma City.
article_snippet.sent: The information was also passed along to foreign governments who in turn used The information in building their own cases and investigations.