National Security Letters. Of all the dangerous government surveillance powers that were expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act the National Security Letter (NSL) power under 18 U.S.C. § 2709 as expanded by PATRIOT Section 505 is one of the most frightening and invasive.
These letters served on communications service providers like phone companies and ISPs allow the FBI to secretly demand data about ordinary American citizens' private communications and Internet activity without any meaningful oversight or prior judicial review. Recipients of NSLs are subject to a gag order that forbids them from ever revealing the letters' existence to their coworkers to their friends or even to their family members much less the public.
The FBI's systemic abuse of this power has been documented both by a Department Of Justice investigation and in documents obtained by EFF through a Freedom of Information Act request. In 2008 EFF defended the Internet Archive from an inappropriate National Security Letter. "How am I supposed to go to a judge if the third party is gagged...?" Please note that by playing this clip YouTube and Google will place a long term cookie on your computer.
Greatest hits for your Friday afternoon: internet freedom activist Jake Appelbaum questions the FBI's deputy general counsel on secret Patriot Act subpoenas, called "National Security Letters" (NSLs). Appelbaum has been a target of the secret, gag-imposed orders. EUROPE versus FACEBOOK. WikiLeaks demands Google and Facebook unseal US subpoenas. WikiLeaks has demanded that Google and Facebook reveal the contents of any US subpoenas they may have received after it emerged that a court in Virginia had ordered Twitter to secretly hand over details of accounts on the micro-blogging site by five figures associated with the group, including Julian Assange.
Amid strong evidence that a US grand jury has begun a wide-ranging trawl for details of what networks and accounts WikiLeaks used to communicate with Bradley Manning, the US serviceman accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of sensitive government cables, some of those named in the subpoena said they would fight disclosure. "Today, the existence of a secret US government grand jury espionage investigation into WikiLeaks was confirmed for the first time as a subpoena was brought into the public domain," WikiLeaks said in a statement. They include WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Manning, Icelandic MP Brigitta Jonsdottir and Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp.