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Setback for secret Big Brother database
Court orders release in program that excludes typical privacy safeguards
WND
Bob Unruh
10/19/2012
Excerpt:
The federal government has been told by a judge to start producing copies of documents in an open government case brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center over a nationwide plan to integrate within the government a comprehensive database about Americans.
The organization confirmed in a statement today that the order involves its case against the Office of Director of National Intelligence, in which EPIC wants information about Washington’s strategy to integrate databases inside the government “without the legal safeguards typically in place for personal data.”
The court ordered the agency to disclose the procedures it has establish to safeguard privacy rights, EPIC said.
The lawsuit wants information from the office, an executive branch operation under the control of the Obama White House, about its plan to collect database information about Americans from the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
EPIC, which for nearly 20 years has focused its attention on the civil liberties, privacy, First Amendment and constitutional issues related to electronic data, said under Washington’s revised guidelines, “The ODNI plans to obtain and integrate databases containing detailed personal information from across the federal government.
“The data will be kept for up to five years without the legal safeguards typically in place for personal data held by government agencies,” the organization explained.
The complaint was filed under the Freedom of Information Act after the Obama administration didn’t respond to questions from the group about how it plans to collect personal data “from across the federal government” and how the privacy of Americans will be protected.
The complaint explains that the New York Times documented earlier this year that Attorney General Eric Holder set up guidelines for the National Counterterrorism Center, a division of ODNI, regarding privacy.
The changes, the complaint explained, “would relax restrictions on how ODNI analysts may retrieve, store, and search information about Americans.”
“The revised NCTC guidelines allow the NCTC to copy entire datasets in other federal agencies and to analyze the aggregate data,” the complaint, dated Aug. 1, says.
While the federal ageny not only would be allowed to collect and analyze the data, it also would be allowed to “supplement incomplete information to the extent additional information becomes available.”
“Under the NCTC guidelines, the NCTC may permanently retain, use, or disseminate data if it is ‘reasonably believed to constitute terrorism information,’ defined to mean if, ‘based on the knowledge and experience of counterterrorism analysts as well as the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent persons act, there are facts giving rise to a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the information is terrorism information.”
The ODNI is part of an intelligence coalition that includes Air Force Intelligence, Army Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Department of the Treasury, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Marine Corps Intelligence, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency and Navy Intelligence.
The privacy center wants records regarding the way the Obama administration will correct inaccurate or unreliable information, how workers are trained to handle the private information, whether there has been any abuse of the system, and what safeguards and oversight mechanisms are in place.
While the data requests have been acknowledged, no information has been forthcoming, meaning that the administration office “has failed to comply with statutory deadlines and failed to make responsive records available to EPIC.”
Additionally, there’s been no explanation on what data the CIA, which is supposed to be operating only on foreign soil, has on American citizens.
Alarmingly, there have been multiple reports that top key intelligence officials in the Department of Homeland Security and elsewhere believe supporters of third-party presidential candidates, advocates of the Constitution and pro-lifers may be terrorists.
A DHS-funded study by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008,” noted that nearly one-third of all terrorist attacks from 1970 to 2008 occurred in five metropolitan counties run by Democrats.
The counties were Manhattan, Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The report went on to list groups by ideology, such as right-wing, left-wing, religious and single-issue.
Interestingly, key data regarding Islamic terrorism is missing from the report.
..................................................
View the complete article at:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/setback-f...ther-database/
Court orders release in program that excludes typical privacy safeguards
WND
Bob Unruh
10/19/2012
Excerpt:
The federal government has been told by a judge to start producing copies of documents in an open government case brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center over a nationwide plan to integrate within the government a comprehensive database about Americans.
The organization confirmed in a statement today that the order involves its case against the Office of Director of National Intelligence, in which EPIC wants information about Washington’s strategy to integrate databases inside the government “without the legal safeguards typically in place for personal data.”
The court ordered the agency to disclose the procedures it has establish to safeguard privacy rights, EPIC said.
The lawsuit wants information from the office, an executive branch operation under the control of the Obama White House, about its plan to collect database information about Americans from the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
EPIC, which for nearly 20 years has focused its attention on the civil liberties, privacy, First Amendment and constitutional issues related to electronic data, said under Washington’s revised guidelines, “The ODNI plans to obtain and integrate databases containing detailed personal information from across the federal government.
“The data will be kept for up to five years without the legal safeguards typically in place for personal data held by government agencies,” the organization explained.
The complaint was filed under the Freedom of Information Act after the Obama administration didn’t respond to questions from the group about how it plans to collect personal data “from across the federal government” and how the privacy of Americans will be protected.
The complaint explains that the New York Times documented earlier this year that Attorney General Eric Holder set up guidelines for the National Counterterrorism Center, a division of ODNI, regarding privacy.
The changes, the complaint explained, “would relax restrictions on how ODNI analysts may retrieve, store, and search information about Americans.”
“The revised NCTC guidelines allow the NCTC to copy entire datasets in other federal agencies and to analyze the aggregate data,” the complaint, dated Aug. 1, says.
While the federal ageny not only would be allowed to collect and analyze the data, it also would be allowed to “supplement incomplete information to the extent additional information becomes available.”
“Under the NCTC guidelines, the NCTC may permanently retain, use, or disseminate data if it is ‘reasonably believed to constitute terrorism information,’ defined to mean if, ‘based on the knowledge and experience of counterterrorism analysts as well as the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent persons act, there are facts giving rise to a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the information is terrorism information.”
The ODNI is part of an intelligence coalition that includes Air Force Intelligence, Army Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Department of the Treasury, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Marine Corps Intelligence, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency and Navy Intelligence.
The privacy center wants records regarding the way the Obama administration will correct inaccurate or unreliable information, how workers are trained to handle the private information, whether there has been any abuse of the system, and what safeguards and oversight mechanisms are in place.
While the data requests have been acknowledged, no information has been forthcoming, meaning that the administration office “has failed to comply with statutory deadlines and failed to make responsive records available to EPIC.”
Additionally, there’s been no explanation on what data the CIA, which is supposed to be operating only on foreign soil, has on American citizens.
Alarmingly, there have been multiple reports that top key intelligence officials in the Department of Homeland Security and elsewhere believe supporters of third-party presidential candidates, advocates of the Constitution and pro-lifers may be terrorists.
A DHS-funded study by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, “Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008,” noted that nearly one-third of all terrorist attacks from 1970 to 2008 occurred in five metropolitan counties run by Democrats.
The counties were Manhattan, Los Angeles, Miami-Dade, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The report went on to list groups by ideology, such as right-wing, left-wing, religious and single-issue.
Interestingly, key data regarding Islamic terrorism is missing from the report.
..................................................
View the complete article at:
http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/setback-f...ther-database/