01-21-2018, 12:33 AM
We are sorry we drove over your leg and deleted it back in 2009, it was just an honest accident.
A truly honest accident that we backed up again over that leg of yours and deleted it again in 2011.
An honestly truly honest accident that we backed up again and again o and deleted it once more, just in case, in 2016....
A truly honest accident that we backed up again over that leg of yours and deleted it again in 2011.
An honestly truly honest accident that we backed up again and again o and deleted it once more, just in case, in 2016....
NSA deleted surveillance data it pledged to preserve
The agency tells a federal judge that it is investigating and 'sincerely regrets its failure.'
The National Security Agency destroyed surveillance data it pledged to preserve in connection with pending lawsuits and apparently never took some of the steps it told a federal court it had taken to make sure the information wasn’t destroyed, according to recent court filings....
Since 2007, the NSA has been under court orders to preserve data about certain of its surveillance efforts that came under legal attack following disclosures that President George W. Bush ordered warrantless wiretapping of international communications after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. In addition, the agency has made a series of representations in court over the years about how it is complying with its duties.
However, the NSA told U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White in a filing on Thursday night and another little-noticed submission last year that the agency did not preserve the content of internet communications intercepted between 2001 and 2007 under the program Bush ordered. To make matters worse, backup tapes that might have mitigated the failure were erased in 2009, 2011 and 2016, the NSA said.
“The NSA sincerely regrets its failure to prevent the deletion of this data,” NSA’s deputy director of capabilities, identified publicly as “Elizabeth B.,” wrote in a declaration filed in October. “NSA senior management is fully aware of this failure, and the Agency is committed to taking swift action to respond to the loss of this data.”
In the update Thursday, another NSA official said the data were deleted during a broad, housecleaning effort aimed at making space for incoming information.
Defiance of a court order can result in civil or criminal contempt charges, as well as sanctions against the party responsible. So far, no one involved appears to have asked White to impose any punishment or sanction on the NSA over the newly disclosed episodes, although the details of what happened are still emerging....
“It’s really disappointing,” said David Greene, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has been leading the prolonged litigation over the program in federal court in San Francisco. “The obligation’s been in place for a really long time now. … We had a major dust-up about it just a few years ago. This is definitely something that should’ve been found sooner.”
The last legal showdown over the issue may have actually compounded the NSA’s problems. In May 2014, an NSA official known as “Miriam P.” assured the court that the data were safe.
The NSA is “preserving magnetic/digital tapes of the Internet content intercepted under the [PSP] since the inception of the program,” she wrote, adding that “the NSA has stored these tapes in the offices of its General Counsel.”
The agency now says, “regrettably,” that the statement “may have been only partially accurate when made.”