Constitutional Law

Four Years of Privacy Abuses By the FBI

The New York Times reported that the FBI admitted that "it improperly accessed American's 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 acknowledgement came in advance of an audit by the Department of Justice's Inspector General, which will be released as early as next week.

In previous years, the FBI's use of national security letters – administrative subpoenas that "require telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other business to produce highly personal records about their customers or subscribers without a judge's approval" – has been underreported to Congress, consisted of unauthorized demands for information, and collected more data than allowed.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on March 09, 2008 (boomark / email).