The NSA Has Your Data: Now Everyone Else Wants In

Officials Fear Other Agencies Would Abuse Data

The more we learn about NSA surveillance the scarier it gets. The agency is making it a point to collect anything and everything it can get. It has all of your data, which it is convinced is relevant to “terrorism” investigations.

But as the fight picks up to limit the NSA’s position of near limitless, unchecked power, a secondary battle is picking up between the NSA and every other government agency, who all think they should have access to it too.

From the DEA to the military, everyone is willing to argue that them getting a copy of everything is in the interest of national security, and if there’s a silver lining in the NSA scandal, its that government agencies hate to share, so the NSA has been very reluctant to hand over your data to anyone else.

Ironically, officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence argue that if those other agencies that they don’t run get the data, they’ll abuse it. That’s a fair bet, because the NSA itself has had “compliance problems” from day one, and everyone else seems like they’d be just as willing to abuse their access.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.