CIA reveals new guidelines for collecting data on Americans

There's no question that the US government's approach to handling sensitive data could stand an update to acknowledge the online age, and the CIA is taking a stab at it. The agency has published new procedures that govern how it collects, keeps and shares information on Americans under Executive Order 12333. The guidelines acknowledge that it's much, much easier to collect large volumes of data than when the Order surfaced in the 1980s, and that the nature of the internet requires restrictions that hadn't even been considered before. The updated rules include "specific approval requirements" for any data that can't be evaluated right away, and limit data collection to the smallest the CIA needs to achieve its goals. Agents can't just scoop up as much as they can and hoard it for later, in other words. The agency will also limit access to unevaluated data, insist on training for handling that data and require the deletion of that data no more than 5 years after it's available. -- More...