National Counterterrorism Center image credit: fbi.gov |
Catherine J. Frompovich, Contributor
Activist Post
December 12, 2012, The Wall Street Journal [WSJ] published “U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens”, which The Washington Post Group’s Slate highlighted December 13th. Apparently these articles captured the attention of two U.S. Congressmen who sit on the same House of Representative committees, Judiciary and Oversight & Government Reform.
Plaudits must go to the Honorable Jason Chaffetz of Utah and the Honorable Trey Gowdy of South Carolina for their December 17, 2012 letter to Attorney General of the United States Eric H Holder, Jr. regarding Holder’s purported granting of new powers to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) to store dossiers on U.S. citizens who are not suspected of any criminal activity.
So, is that what the National Security Agency’s (NSA) almost $2 Billion, million-plus-square-foot storage center in Bluffdale, Utah, is all about?
In their letter to AG Holder, the Congressmen say,
The WSJ goes on to report the new rules allow the NCTC to keep data about innocent United States citizens for up to five years and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited.
…we are concerned such sweeping, fundamental changes would be made to existing policy without public input and Congressional approval.
And they ask AG Holder four very specific questions, each of which has a few sub-questions, which they request to be answered by 5PM January 31, 2013. The prime questions query:
- Does the Justice Department believe the NCTC, or any other government agency, has the power/legal authority to keep data about citizens who are not suspected of a crime?
- Does the Justice Department believe the NCTC, or any other government agency, has the power/legal authority to analyze government databases for suspicious patterns of behavior?
- Does the Justice Department believe it has the power to change the rules governing who NCTC has the power/legal authority to store data on and how data may be used without approval from Congress?
- The Privacy Act of 1974 bars the federal government from sharing data for any purpose other than the reason for which the data was initially collected, unless the sharing meets a specific exception contained in the Act.
The new NCTC Guidelines sweeping away decades-long protections by allowing the military and intelligence agencies to target innocent Americans for collection.
Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies.
Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.
Catherine’s latest book, A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.
Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008).
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