NSA must delete irrelevant data from non-Americans after five years

The NSA and other secret services must delete data from non-Americans that they collect incidentally and serve no purpose within five years. That is what the US government has decided. Americans remain better protected than foreigners.

President Obama will announce the rules later on Tuesday, The New York Times reported. Although Obama said last year that the same privacy rules would apply to non-Americans as to Americans, there is a difference: data that is sucked up by the intelligence services and that is not used for intelligence must be immediately removed when it comes to Americans, while information about foreigners does not have to leave until after five years.

Under the new rules, non-Americans can also go to a US court if they accuse the FBI or other law enforcement agency of misusing their data. This is only possible if that data has been handed over to the American services by a foreign government. Moreover, secret services such as the NSA are excluded from this possibility.

Finally, the US government will somewhat restrict the national security letters. NSLs are letters that the FBI can send to companies requesting information from users that would pose a threat to national security. The companies must hand over user data without the involvement of a judge and, moreover, must never acknowledge the existence of the letter. Obama plans to stop labeling the letters “secret” after three years, according to the New York Times, unless the FBI can demonstrate the need to keep the letter secret.