NSA Data Must Expire After 5 Years

A FISA court shot down a request by the U.S. government to keep NSA surveillance data for longer than five years so it could retain evidence for future Electronic Frontier Foundation or ACLU lawsuits. The ruling judge said that keeping the data for longer than five years "would further infringe on the privacy interests" of citizens. The court had previously allowed the NSA to collect bulk metadata, but stipulated it must be destroyed after five years. "The government seeks to retain these records, not for national security reasons, but because some of them may be relevant in civil litigation in which the destruction of those very same records is being requested," the judge said.