OversightPrivacy board wants Feds to update security agencies’ operating rules

David Medine, chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, an independent oversight board reviewing secret government surveillance programs, sent a letter to high Justice Department officials arguing that national security agencies are operating under outdated rules which should  be revised to reflect advances in technology.

Bloomberg reports that in his letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Medine urged that rules governing collection and retention of data about Americans need be revised to “appropriately capture both the evolution of technology and the roles and capabilities of the intelligence community since 9/11.”

According to Medine, the NSA, which supervises most surveillance programs, has not updated its guidelines since 1993. The FBI updated its own guidelines in 2008, while the National Counterterrorism Center revised its surveillance rules in 2012. Executive Order 12333, signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, still governs the government’s ability to collect cell phone numbers and other telephone data under section 215 of the USA Patriot Act. The NSA’s recent disclosure that some data had been mistakenly collected from Americans due to technology errors in the agency’s spying program, has raised concerns about the amount of time government can retain such data in its inventories.

Medine said he and other members of the oversight board decided to write to Holder and Clapper after they learned that some government agencies had not updated their surveillance guidelines in three decades. “In many cases, these guidelines don’t take into account major changes in technology such as text messaging and the ability to share large computer databases almost instantaneously,” Medine said, “Without drawing conclusions, we’re saying these guidelines need to be revisited.”