The Pentagon wants to keep its counterintelligence files secret from the people in them

The Department of Defense is creating a new system to track counterintelligence investigations and related activities. It wants to exempt parts of these records from the Privacy Act of 1974, which normally allows individuals to see and correct information held about them by the government.

The Privacy Act of 1974 was designed to give citizens control over their personal information held by federal agencies. If this proposal goes through, the Pentagon could collect and store sensitive data on individuals for counterintelligence purposes without those individuals ever knowing what information is held or being able to challenge its accuracy. This creates a new class of secret government records that could affect people's lives without their knowledge or recourse.