NSA: We'll move your metadata into /dev/null when you stop suing us

The NSA has said it will delete its mountain of private telephone records belonging to millions of Americans – just as soon as people stop suing it for having done so. The agency's slurping of phone numbers, the times and dates of calls, and (in some case) the locations of cellphone calls, was exposed in the first-ever leak of …

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't hold your breath...

[Zoopy]

Right....

And we would believe them... why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they will delete it. I wholeheartedly believe them.

However I also suspect that they will have already taken a backup.....

[Mark 85]

I shudder to think at the size of the tape for that backup run...

[PleebSmash]

evidata

NSA: We'll delete the evidence of our crimes, just as soon as you look away

[Orv]

Sigh, I so hate to have to do this.

I don't like to defend the NSA, but they're correct -- the lawsuits mean that deleting the data now would be destruction of evidence, which is a serious crime.

[Old Handle]

Re: Sigh, I so hate to have to do this.

That excuse might work for people who have a history of caring about the law.

[perlcat]

but of course!

It's a good faith deletion, and you can rest assured that it will be most thoroughly deleted from the place where you know it to be.

[DvorakUser]

I misread Tips and Corrections...

... as reading Tips and Conspiracies. Given the topic in question, though, is it really too large a leap for that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since they have the power to keep some lawsuits secret

Even if all the lawsuits were dropped they'd probably claim there are still some out there, so they don't have to delete that data. They never will, regardless of what Congress orders them to do, because they think they're above the law.

[Graham Marsden]

Why does this sound like...

... a bully grabbing your arm and saying "Stop hitting yourself"...?