The GAO (General Accounting Office) is illegally stockpiling information on gun owners. They are supposed to delete identifiable information before storing but they aren’t. This gives them a huge data base when it comes time to initiate national gun confiscation. At least two of the ATF data bases violate the law.
One of the data-collecting systems called Multiple Sales (MS) requires that multiple firearms purchased at once must be reported to ATF by the federal firearms licensee (FFL). ATF policy requires that the bureau internally removes particular data from multiple gun sales reports after two years if the firearm has not been traced to criminal activity. GAO found that ATF does not adhere to its own policy. In fact, “until May 2016, MS contained over 10,000 names that were not consistently deleted within the required 2 years.”
Another system called Access 2000, or A2K, establishes servers to be used by National Tracing Center (NTC) personnel. The NTC can electronically search FFLs’ records for certain information needed to track the history of a firearm.
While GAO’s investigation revealed that A2K for currently-operating FFLs complied with formal policy, A2K for out-of-business FFLs did not comply with the restrictions “because ATF maintained these data on a single server.” They were directed to get rid of this consolidated information and did so in March 2016. Furthermore, GAO found that ATF does not, but potentially should, have an outlined policy that specifies how out-of-business FFLs should submit documentation of compliance or share pertinent information.
Another problem caused by the over accumulation of information, is that it is difficult to maintain and can also endanger citizens’ privacy by making the system vulnerable. The GAO has recommended that they immediately delete the extemporaneous information that is illegal for them to save both for the safety of the system and the privacy rights of gun owners.
Anyone wanna bet whether they listen?