The Brennan Center for Justice-NEW REPORT: What the Government Does with Americans' Data

[kpete]

The Brennan Center for Justice has taken on the herculean task of explaining all of the ways that surveillance agencies are collecting, storing, and sharing the private data on U.S. citizens. It's all in a new report, and it's disquieting, to say the least. The report focuses on the "misses"—all of the information that is collected that is completely innocuous, that shows no nefarious activity at all. What happens with that information is particularly problematic.

One might expect that this information would NOT be retained, let alone extensively shared among agencies. To the contrary, there are a multitude of laws and directives encouraging broader retention and sharing of information—not only within the federal government, but with state and local agencies, foreign governments, and even private parties. [...]

Against this backdrop, this report analyzes the retention, sharing, and use by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies of information about Americans not suspected of criminal activity. It examines five distinct categories of information. The categories are Suspicious Activity Reports, assessments, National Security Letters, searches of electronics at the border, and information acquired by the National Security Agency.

Among these data sets, this report finds that in many cases, information carrying no apparent investigative value is treated no differently from information that does give rise to reasonable suspicion of criminal or terrorist activity. Basically, the chaff is treated the same as the wheat. In other cases, while the governing policies do set certain standards limiting the retention or sharing of non-criminal information about Americans, the restrictions are weakened by exceptions for vaguely-described law enforcement or national security purposes. Depending on the data set, presumptively innocuous information may be retained for periods ranging from two weeks to five years to 75 years or more.

The reports' authors conclude that the "widescale collection and retention of personal information about Americans not suspected of criminal activity invites abuse without any significant demonstrated benefit."


Much More:
http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/what-government-does-americans-data
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/09/1245717/-What-the-NSA-is-doing-with-all-our-data

[2naSalit]

1. Indeed

It's just sitting there waiting for a use.