Court rejects NSA request to keep data

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has denied the National Security Agency’s (NSA) attempt to hold onto people’s phone records for longer than the law allows. In an order, the court said the Justice Department’s attempt to authorize keeping the records beyond the current five-year legal limit “is simply unpersuasive.” “The Court has not found any case law supporting the government’s broad assertion that its duty to preserve supersedes statutory or regulatory requirements,” Judge Reggie Walton wrote in the court’s decision. [March 7]