by Mike Ryan
Most folks are aware of the Patriot Act. Here is the skinny:
The USA PATRIOT Act, commonly known as the “Patriot Act”, is a statute enacted by the United States Government that President George W. Bush signed into law on October 26, 2001. The contrived acronym stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (Public Law Pub.L. 107-56).
Interestingly enough, other than allowing for pretty much warrantless wiretapping and general snooping, the real OGRE or Omnipresent Government REcon, (my acronym) is something called the NSL or National Security Letters (their acronym) which can be presented to any ISP and comes complete with a built in “we were never here” clause.
These little beauties allow the government almost complete and unrestricted access to your life as lived on the Internet. Although the NSL’s (not to be confused with the current super-lame SNL) do seemingly have to follow certain guidlines meant to protect the citizen, they can be issued pretty much at will and if time is really an issue–like when the local pub near Quantico is hosting a wet tee shirt contest promptly at 5:30pm after work–THEY can and have issued “corrective NSL’s ” which firstly, allows the Justice Department the right to keep any info they’ve ’stolen’ under prior NSL’S and secondl, allow for exigent requests which are an informal emergency request to a business to voluntarily hand over information until a more formal NSL can be issued to cover the request.
Here is more on the NSL’s from Wired:
FBI Use of Patriot Act Authority Increased Dramatically in 2008
- By Kim Zetter
- May 19, 2009 |
- 2:34 pm |
- Categories: Surveillance, The Courts
FISA-court authorizations for national security and counter-terrorism wiretaps dropped last year by almost 300, a new Justice Department report to Congress shows. But the FBI’s use of “national security letters” to get information on Americans without a court order increased dramatically, from 16,804 in 2007 to 24,744 in 2008.
The 2008 requests targeted 7,225 U.S. people.
This is still much lower than the number of NSLs issued in 2006 — more than 49,000 — but indicates that the FBI’s reliance on the self-authorized subpoenas is rebounding, after audits in 2006 and 2007 revealed the bureau had been abusing the tool.
The new seven-page report (.pdf) was submitted to Congress last Thursday.
National security letters (NSL) are written demands from the FBI that compel internet service providers, credit companies, financial institutions and others to hand over confidential records about their customers, such as subscriber information, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, websites visited and more.
NSLs have been used since the 1980s, but the Patriot Act expanded the kinds of records that could be obtained with an NSL. They do not require court approval, and come with a built-in lifetime gag order. With an NSL, the FBI need merely assert that the information is “relevant” to an investigation, and anyone who gets a national security letter is prohibited from disclosing that they’ve received the request.
The FBI’s use of NSLs has been sharply criticized. In 2007, a Justice Department Inspector General audit found that the FBI, which issued almost 200,000 NSLs between 2003 and 2006, had abused its authority and misused NSLs.
The inspector general found that the FBI evaded limits on (and sometimes illegally issued) NSLs to obtain phone, e-mail and financial information on American citizens, and under-reported the use of NSLs to Congress.
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- NSL, National Security Letters. (warintel.blogspot.com)
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