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U.S. Gov't To Keep Data On Non-Terrorist Citizens For 5 Years
arnott writes with this excerpt from the Washington Post:
"The Obama administration has approved guidelines that allow counterterrorism officials to lengthen the period of time they retain information about U.S. residents, even if they have no known connection to terrorism. The changes allow the National Counterterrorism Center, the intelligence community's clearinghouse for terrorism data, to keep information for up to five years. Previously, the center was required to promptly destroy — generally within 180 days — any information about U.S. citizens or residents unless a connection to terrorism was evident."
I'm surprised there is even a 5 year limit- figured they would keep that data indefinately. I'm sure they have loopholes to allow them to keep the data on anyone that they think is "interesting".
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I Hope we Change our President this year
We need to take down these terrorists, and if that means ignoring the Bill of Rights and throwing Americans into concentration camps, like we did in WW2, then so be it. As Santorum said, "We must be united in this war. We cannot allow any criticism."
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I really fail to understand how this data is used and if anyone actually checks it or if it is kept in order to incriminate you later. See what happened in Toulouse last week: a man who went in and out Afghanistan and Pakistan, was known to the police, went in and out of jail a couple of times, was known to frequent an extremist group, still managed to kill children in a school and keep the police busy for two days under siege.
Shouldn't he have been stopped before?
I don't understand, really.
...that the biggest Terrorist organization and biggest threat to American's rights is the US government...
Would Misuer prefer to be hanged with a red rope, or a blue rope?
If it were Bush it would be 10 years!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
That info is about USA citizens.
So the situation for foreigners must be much worse...
We have always been at war with terrorism. And drugs. And poverty.
Thanks to the US govt people can stop worrying about the trilateral commission and smoking old men in dark back rooms. Who needs conspiracy theories are theorists when the govt. can do anything it wants right out in the open. We're all criminals and pirates. Well except for white collar criminals, their just good capitalists.
the united states government is pursuing terrorists so voraciously, it is not because they have your safety as a primary concern. Natural disasters are easily shrugged off, for example little effort was put into katrina and many lives lost due to government neglegence but no real repercussions arose from the incident, just a smooth shuffling of deck chairs so to speak.
the occupy protests, while they included violent police crackdowns on citizens and journalists alike, also received no real repercussions that couldnt be easily dismissed by the government as the rantings of kids and slackers with "no clear message" and "subversive" tendencies.
terrorism on the other hand brings results. it undermines a government in ways that are unchallengeable as it is an amorphous concept. theres no real enemy, despite how badly america wanted it to be osama, or sadam, or al-awlaki. Terrorism is an ideology, and every troop from the legions of rome to the english military officer who stood guard against the irish menace during the troubles understands that no weapon will ever purge it from the earth. terrorism is determination with absolutely nothing to lose; the last resort of a broken people.
you dont disarm terrorists by spying on everyone, because anyone can be a terrorist at any time it simply is not efficient. the only way to stop terrorism is to recognize the demands of the terrorist and try to understand what it is thats driven them to it. so long as we continue to fight, we will meet the immovable object to our unstoppable force each time with no ground gained or lost on either side.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Hosting all that data costs money. From a law enforcement point of view it's probably worthless after 5 years anyway.
But you're missing the point. Politically and citizen-control-wise, it can be worth far, far more than gold. Absolutely worth it, to them, to spend our money (not theirs) on it. Just another tax and tick on the debt clock that will never cost *them* a dime.
They have to take our money to retain the data, so that when we get angry because they take our money to retain the data, they can use the data they retained to protect themselves from the citizens who are angry that they're retaining the data.
It's turtles all the way down.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.