From WIRED, full article HERE.
In a secret government agreement granted without approval or debate from lawmakers, the U.S. attorney general recently gave the National Counterterrorism Center sweeping new powers to store dossiers on U.S. citizens, even if they are not suspected of a crime, according to a news report.
Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder granted the center the ability to copy entire government databases holding information on flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and other data, and to store it for up to five years, even without suspicion that someone in the database has committed a crime, according to the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story.
Whereas previously the law prohibited the center from storing data compilations on U.S. citizens unless they were suspected of terrorist activity or were relevant to an ongoing terrorism investigation, the new powers give the center the ability to not only collect and store vast databases of information but also to trawl through and analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior in order to uncover activity that could launch an investigation.
The changes granted by Holder would also allow databases containing information about U.S. citizens to be shared with foreign governments for their own analysis.
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The Obama administration’s new rules come after previous surveillance proposals were struck down during the Bush administration, following widespread condemnation.
In 2002, the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness program proposed to scrutinize both government and private databases, but public outrage killed the program in essence, though not in spirit. Although Congress de-funded the program in 2003, the NSA continued to collect and sift through immense amounts of data about who Americans spoke with, where they traveled and how they spent their money.
The Federal Privacy Act prohibits government agencies from sharing data for any purpose other than the reason for which the data was initially collected, in order to prevent the creation of dossiers, but agencies can do an end-run around this restriction by posting a notice in the Federal Register, providing justification for the data request. Such notices are rarely seen or contested, however.
The ONLY thing transparent in this is OUR lives… sigh…
“Whereas previously the law prohibited…”
We no longer live in a nation of laws.
We live in a nation of fiats (and I don’t mean Italy).
Executive Orders have morphed into dictatorial powers unchallenged.
What Ed said…
Foe, you’re such a downer….. if they want to know what a wacko squid YOU are – hell, they can just read your blog.
Watch out for the “black helicopters.” (It’s only Santa.)
Does somebody need a hug & some Single Malt? Yes, yes I do.
+1 Ed B.
They can read our blogs — middle finger raised toward Washington DC.
I have often wondered if the gubment has a file on me. I wouldn’t doubt it…I’m on everybody else’s shit list.
A commenter at my site recently pointed out that the larger the list, the more useless it is. All us bloggers have been on the list since the first mention of firearms or libertarian beliefs.
Whatever.
Hope they spell my Name right this time.
Of course, they should remember that other people keep Lists, “Just in Case.”
Ed/Stephen/WSF- Yep
Russell- Agreed! 🙂 15 year old Macallan sitting on the desk right now!
LL- Agreed
CP- I figure I’m in good company!
Rev- Probably…
Les- LOL
Anyone remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth after 9/11, all the evil that Bush did, the trampling of rights, illegal detentions, etc?
Where are those whiners nowadays, to bash the current leadership that is putting their greatest fears into reality?
Wandering- Good question!!!