Obama administration extends time it can hold records on innocent citizens from 180 days to 5 years!

[Better Believe It]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 23, 2012
ACLU Statement on Extension of Time U.S. Can Retain Info on Innocent Americans in Counterterror Databases

WASHINGTON - March 23 - The Obama administration has extended the time the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) can collect and hold on to records on U.S. citizens and residents from 180 days to five years, even where those people have no suspected ties to terrorism. The new NCTC guidelines, which were approved by Attorney General Eric Holder, will give the intelligence community much broader access to information about Americans retained in various government databases.

Michael German, ACLU senior policy counsel and a former FBI agent said:

“The decades-old rules limiting the collection and retention of U.S. citizen and resident information by the intelligence community and the military existed for a very good reason: to ensure that the powerful tools designed to protect us from foreign enemies are not turned against Americans. Authorizing the 'temporary' retention of non-terrorism related citizen and resident information for five years essentially removes the restraint against wholesale collection of our personal information by the government, and puts all Americans at risk of unjustified scrutiny. Such unfettered collection risks reviving the Bush administration’s Total Information Awareness program, which Congress killed in 2003.

The previous obligation to ‘promptly review’ data and purge non-terrorism related U.S. citizen and resident information served to protect Americans’ privacy and security by forcing the intelligence community to properly focus its collection efforts, and by compelling them to make timely reviews of information gathered. After too many intelligence failures, we’ve found the important pieces of information were lost in the vast streams of data collected. Making the haystack bigger will only make it harder to find the needle, endangering both privacy and security.

American citizens and residents should not be considered potential terrorists until the NCTC decides otherwise. Having innocent people’s information in intelligence databases for five years without any suspicion of wrongdoing creates an unacceptable risk to Americans’ privacy through error and abuse.”

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http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/03/23-8

[polichick]

1. Every time this president out-Bushes Bush, it's truly scary.

[KG]

2. tut,tut. don't you know - IOKIODI

[Curtis]

3. Don't worry

This is just some move us mortals cannot understand in his multi-layered game of chess with the Republicans.

[CAPHAVOC]

4. Same old Good Cop Bad Cop routine.

As far as civil rights are concerned.

[Ilsa]

5. The article from the other day said that Congress had approved this.

Where does the request for the extension originate, and what are the steps? The group, then the AG, then Congress, then the President?

I think there is shared blame for this.

[Better Believe It]

6. Do you have a link to the article? I'd like to read it.

[Ilsa]

8. According to this, it sounds like Congress requested the changes.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_INTELLIGENCE_DATABASE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-03-22-21-36-13

At least, that's how I read it.

[Better Believe It]

9. Thanks for the link. Some members of Congress called on President Obama to take this action.

But, this change was not required by congressional legislation.

That's what it looks like unless we get more information.

[bvar22]

7. Nothing to see here folks.

This is just a minor adjustment to existing legislation,
so any concerns are just manufactured poutrage from those who don't love President Obama.

Besides, FDR did something worse in 1941,
so only right wing trolls are concerned about our vanishing Civil Liberties today.

You should be grateful, and consider yourself lucky we don't have President Palin!

Move along.
Go shopping.



You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
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