SafeUM
Home Blog Services Download Help About Recharge

Axarhöfði 14, 110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015
SafeUM
Blog
Services
Download
Help
About
Recharge
Menu
Archive
TOP Security!
10 Mar 2014

NSA Ordered by Judge to Preserve Phone Records It Collected

The National Security Agency was blocked by a judge from carrying out plans tomorrow to begin destroying phone records collected for surveillance after a privacy group argued they are relevant to lawsuits claiming the practice is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in San Francisco ordered the agency today to retain the records and scheduled a hearing for March 19 on whether they can be destroyed. The NSA had planned to dispose of the records following a March 7 ruling by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet privacy and civil liberties group based in San Francisco, asked White for a temporary restraining order today, saying the records may be used as evidence in its lawsuits challenging NSA surveillance and are covered under preservation orders in those cases.

NSA is prohibited from destroying “any telephone metadata or ‘call detail’ records,” White said today.

The surveillance court, in its ruling, barred the NSA from keeping the records for more than five years because the privacy rights of the people whose phone data was swept up in the agency’s database trump the need for the information in litigation.

The retention of phone records has emerged as one of the most contentious issues for the government stemming from the documents leaked by former security contractor Edward Snowden. Civil liberties groups argue that such data collection violates privacy rights. Government officials say the information is needed to combat terrorism.

NSA Program

The records collected under an NSA program consist of “metadata” including the numbers used to make and receive calls and their duration. They don’t include information about the content of the communications, or the names, addresses or financial information of parties, according to government filings.

EFF challenged the NSA telephone surveillance in a complaint filed in July alleging that it illegally erodes the free-speech rights of religious, environmental and human-rights groups. The records are also relevant to a pending 2008 case challenging NSA surveillance, and the NSA was on notice in both cases that it should preserve evidence, Cindy Cohn, legal director at EFF, said in a filing today.

Last week’s ruling by the surveillance court was in response to a government bid to waive the requirement that the records be destroyed after five years because they might prove relevant to such lawsuits.

The U.S. request to hold the records indefinitely “would further infringe on the privacy interest of the United States persons whose telephone records were acquired in vast numbers and retained by the government for five years to aid in national security investigations,” wrote U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who is the presiding judge of the surveillance court.

‘Mistaken Belief’

The March 7 FISC ruling was “based on a mistaken belief that no preservation order existed for the material,” Cohn said.

“If the government proceeds with its planned destruction of evidence, the evidence will be gone,” Cohn said. “This is by definition irreparable.”
The EFF case is First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. National Security Agency, 13-cv-03287, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

The FISC case is In Re Application of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for an Order Requiring the Production of Tangible Things, BR 14-01, U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

Tags:
NSA USA Snowden surveillance
Source:
Bloomberg Businessweek
1707
Other NEWS
3 Jul 2020 safeum news imgage An encrypted messaging service has been infiltrated by police
4 May 2020 safeum news imgage Two-Factor Authentication ​What Is It and Why You Should Use It
12 Dec 2019 safeum news imgage Encryption is under threat - this is how it affects you
4 Nov 2019 safeum news imgage Should Big Decisions Be Based on Data or Your Intuition?
7 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage VPNFilter malware infecting 500,000 devices is worse than we thought
4 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Hackers target Booking.com in criminal bid to steal hundreds of thousands from customers
1 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Operator of World's Top Internet Hub Sues German Spy Agency
30 May 2018 safeum news imgage US says North Korea behind malware attacks
29 May 2018 safeum news imgage Facebook and Google targeted as first GDPR complaints filed
25 May 2018 safeum news imgage A new reason to not buy these cheap Android devices
24 May 2018 safeum news imgage Flaws in smart pet devices, apps could come back to bite owners
23 May 2018 safeum news imgage Google sued for 'clandestine tracking' of 4.4m UK iPhone users' browsing data
21 May 2018 safeum news imgage LocationSmart reportedly leaked phone location data onto the web
18 May 2018 safeum news imgage The SEC created its own scammy ICO to teach investors a lesson
17 May 2018 safeum news imgage Thieves suck millions out of Mexican banks in transfer heist
All news
SafeUM
Confidential Terms of Use Our technologies Company
Follow us
Download
SafeUM © Safe Universal Messenger

Axarhöfði 14,
110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015