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NSA Ordered to Destroy Phone Records It Collected Illegally

posted by takyon on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-quite dept.

"exec" writes:

The NSA has been ordered to destroy phone records it collected illegally, eventually:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced that the "bulk collection" of phone data the NSA illegally collected under Section 215 of the Patriot act will be locked away starting November 29, 2015.

The data will effectively be out of reach from agency employees ad infinitum, effectively making it unusable in anti-terrorism or national security investigations. The only exception will be a three-month period, in which "technical personal" can check the data for the sole purpose of verifying records produced under the new USA Freedom Act.

The NSA is obligated to preserve most of the data until civil litigation involving the program has been resolved. Also reported at The Intercept and The Register.

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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:32AM

    by anubi (2828) on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:32AM (#214667) Journal

    The courts have also ordered us to stop sharing music as well.

    Think either of these will be honored?

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

  • (Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:41AM

    by tathra (3367) on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:41AM (#214670)

    exactly my thoughts, kinda. the NSA is well-known for complying with the laws and the constitution, i'm sure they'll get right on complying with the order to delete all their illegally-obtained 4th amendment violations. even if they do, they're just the de-facto intel wing for the DEA anwyay, so its not like the info isn't all already backed up and waiting for the DEA to act on it.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:43AM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:43AM (#214672) Journal

    Ordered to destroy, but they are keeping all of it until people stop suing them.
    So never. going. to. happen.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:48PM (#214815)

      "If we could possibly be sued then we can't get rid of it. It could be evidence!"

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday July 28 2015, @06:53PM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday July 28 2015, @06:53PM (#214996) Journal

    Oh, I'm sure the NSA will destroy the phone records — after secretly copying them to a new, top secret location. Oh, and they will of course not destroy the copy. They weren't ordered to do so, were they? :-)

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.