Govt now keeping data on innocent civilians up to 5 years
RT.com reports,
The US intelligence community has risen tenfold the time it has the right to keep data on American citizens and legal residents with no established ties to terrorists. Previously all such records had to be destroyed after six months.
The new guidelines for the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which gathers and shares information among American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, were approved on Thursday.
The previous retention period set in 2008 was “very limiting,” Robert Litt, the chief lawyer for the body which oversees the NCTC, told the Washington Post.
“On Day One, you may look at something and think that it has nothing to do with terrorism. Then six months later, all of a sudden, it becomes relevant,” he explained.
“The ability to search against these data sets for up to five years on a continuing basis as these updated guidelines permit will enable NCTC to accomplish its mission more practically and effectively,” National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper Jr. commented in a statement. . . .
The news comes amid a heated debate over whether or not the fight against terrorism justifies increasingly large powers the US government wields. Human rights groups are criticizing the administration for things like indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects, assassination of US citizens without a court warrant, promoting citizen spying on neighbors and other policies.
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