A recent review of a relatively
unknown program run by the National Counterterrorism Center shows innocent
people can be investigated and their data can be kept for years.
Through Freedom of Information
Act requests and interviews with officials at numerous agencies, The Wall Street
Journal has reconstructed the clash over the counterterrorism program within the
administration of President Barack Obama. The debate was a confrontation between
some who viewed it as a matter of efficiency-how long to keep data, for
instance, or where it should be stored-and others who saw it as granting
authority for unprecedented government surveillance of U.S.
citizens.
The rules now allow the
little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of
U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to
suspect them. That is a departure from past practice, which barred the agency
from storing information about ordinary Americans unless a person was a terror
suspect or related to an investigation.
Now, NCTC can copy entire
government databases-flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of
Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new
authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to
analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were
prohibited. Data about Americans "reasonably believed to constitute terrorism
information" may be permanently retained.
The changes also allow databases
of U.S. civilian information to be given to foreign governments for analysis of
their own. In effect, U.S. and foreign governments would be using the
information to look for clues that people might commit future
crimes.
"It's breathtaking" in its scope,
said a former senior administration official familiar with the White House
debate. WSJ
The President seems to think any
government measure, no matter how unconstitutional, is perfectly acceptable so
long as this meaningless stipulation is uttered along with it: “Counterterrorism
officials say they will be circumspect with the data”. Antiwar
In effect, the U.S. government is
using information it gathers for its ordinary business to turn its own citizens
into the subjects of terrorism investigations. ACLU
Meanwhile, all of this is
supposed to be against the law. The Privacy Act of 1974 says that information
collected by the federal government for one purpose is not supposed to be used
for another. ACLU
Warrantless surveillance of
telephone calls, text messages and emails has shot up dramatically in recent
years, according to Justice Department documents released by the American Civil
Liberties Union in September.
The documents show that real-time
monitoring of electronic communications jumped 60 percent from 2009 to 2011. The
Hill
National Security Agency
whistleblower William Binney said in Mid July that the U.S. government is
secretly gathering information “about virtually every U.S. citizen in the
country” in “a very dangerous process” that violates Americans’ privacy.
Antiwar
Today, Americans can be subject
to search and seizure without a warrant, detained or imprisoned indefinitely,
without charge, without evidence, without a lawyer, without a trial, or even
tortured or assassinated merely for being accused of being associated with
terrorism. examiner.com
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