James Moran: “This is an amendment which incorporates what the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy) has previously offered in…”

“This is an amendment which incorporates what the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy) has previously offered in freestanding legislation. For the last 3 years, the FBI has kept records of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System for 6 months. Last month, the FBI reduced this retention period to 90 days. What this amendment would do is to simply keep that 90-day retention period in place for the length of this appropriations period. Last year the NRA sued the Justice Department to destroy the records immediately. The Justice Department of Attorney General Ashcroft argued before the Appeals Court and the Supreme Court that it was necessary to retain these records for a reasonable period of time to ensure that the information provided by the system is accurate and that people are not providing false information in order to evade the law. Based on that argument, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court decision that the retention by the Department of Justice represented a permissible construction of the requirement to establish a system for preventing disqualified persons from purchasing firearms. Now, the reason for this amendment is that 3 days after the Supreme Court decision said this was the appropriate thing to do, Attorney General Ashcroft decided that they should be destroyed within 1 day. That seems to run counter to the Justice Department's own argument.”