Washington: Invasion of privacy in the Internet age. Expanding the reach of law enforcement to snoop on e-mail traffic or on web surfing. Those are among the criticisms being aimed at the FBI as it tries to update a key surveillance law.
Federal law requires communications providers to produce records in counter-intelligence investigations to the FBI, which doesn't need a judge's approval and court order to get them.
They can be obtained merely with the signature of a special agent in charge of any FBI field office and there is no need even for a suspicion of wrongdoing, merely that the records would be relevant in a counterintelligence or counterterrorism investigation. The person whose records the government wants doesn't even need to be a suspect.
The bureau's use of these so-called national security letters to gather in formation has a checkered history.
The bureau engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority to issue the letters, illegally collecting data from Americans and foreigners, the justice department's inspector general concluded in 2007. The bureau issued 1,92,499 national security letter requests from 2003 to 2006.
Weathering that controversy, the FBI has continued its reliance on the letters to gather information from telephone companies, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses with personal records about their customers or subscribers - and Internet service providers.
That last source is the focus of the justice department's push to get Congress to modify the law.
The law already requires Internet service providers to produce the records, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department's national security division.
But he said as written its also causes confusion and the potential for unnecessary litigation as some Internet companies have argued they are not always obligated to comply with the FBI requests.
A key Democrat on Capitol Hill, senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, wants a timeout. The administration's proposal to change the administration's proposal to change the electronic communications privacy act "raises serious privacy and civil liberties concerns," Leahy said on Thursday in a statement.
"While the government should have the tools that it needs to keep us safe, American citizens should also have protections against improper intrusions into their private electronic communications and online transactions," said Leahy, who plans hearing on this and other issues involving the law.
Keeping an eye
The FBI has continued its reliance on national security letters to gather info from telephone companies, banks, credit bureaus or Internet service providers
The bureau is engaged in misuse if its authority to issue letters, illegally collecting data from Americans and foreigners. It issued 1,92,499 letter requests from 2003 to 2006
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