U.S. released retirement records after 9/11

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Social Security Administration relaxed its guidelines to turn over personal records to the FBI after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to documents released on Wednesday.

The Social Security Administration collects a wide range of information on U.S. citizens for retirement benefits. But Internal memos show it did little to ensure that sensitive earnings and medical information about citizens was properly safeguarded, said a lawyer who obtained the documents through the Freedom of Information Act.

"A law enforcement agent could collect a great deal of information for something that's very tangentially related to 9/11, or could state that it's related to 9/11 when it's not," said Marcia Hofmann, staff counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil-liberties watchdog.

Are we in the 1950's?

Semper Fi