Legal Commentary

FBI Confirms More Privacy Abuses in National Security Letters

By Jeralyn

The AP reports:

The FBI acknowledged Wednesday it improperly accessed Americans' telephone records, credit reports and Internet traffic in 2006, the fourth straight year of privacy abuses resulting from investigations aimed at tracking terrorists and spies.

....[The breach was] caused, in part, by banks, telecommunication companies and other private businesses giving the FBI more personal client data than was requested.

Details will be forthcoming in a report by the Justice Department Inspector General. [More...]

An audit by the inspector general last year found the FBI demanded personal records without official authorization or otherwise collected more data than allowed in dozens of cases between 2003 and 2005. Additionally, last year's audit found that the FBI had underreported to Congress how many national security letters were requested by more than 4,600.

The new audit, which examines use of national security letters issued in 2006, "will identify issues similar to those in the report issued last March," Mueller told senators. The privacy abuse "predates the reforms we now have in place," he said.

On national security letters:

National security letters, as outlined in the USA Patriot Act, are administrative subpoenas used in suspected terrorism and espionage cases. They allow the FBI to require telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses to produce highly personal records about their customers or subscribers without a judge's approval.

More on the abuse of national security letters is here.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 05, 2008 (boomark / email).