Last Friday a news article was published in several places, "FBI sought information on 3,501 people last year using powerful investigative tool". The story:
"The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court’s approval, the Justice Department said Friday. It was the first time the Bush administration has publicly disclosed how often it uses the administrative subpoena known as a national security letter, which allows the executive branch of government to obtain records about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without court approval.
Friday’s disclosure was mandated as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act, the administration’s sweeping anti-terror law. The FBI delivered a total of 9,254 NSLs relating to 3,501 people in 2005, according to a report submitted late Friday to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. In some cases, the bureau demanded information about one person from several companies.The department also reported it received a secret court’s approval for 155 warrants to examine business records last year, under a Patriot Act provision that includes library records. However, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said the department has never used the provision to ask for library records. The number was a significant jump over past use of the warrant for business records. A year ago, Gonzales told Congress there had been 35 warrants approved between November 2003 and April 2005."
Hmm…well, curiosity led me to the Representative Fazio website, where I found a floor statement from November 8, 2005. This statement indicates, among other things, that:
""Mr. Speaker, the Sunday Washington Post had an extraordinary story as a result of investigative journalism. The FBI has issued 30,000 national security letters. Now, we will have to back up for a moment to understand what that means. Four years ago, this Congress was stampeded under the anthrax attack and 9/11 into passing a bill it had not read, the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, which contained many unconstitutional and dubious provisions, many bad ideas from past attorneys general, rejected by previous Congresses, passed in a hysterical time for the Congress. Now it is about to be reauthorized, and, in fact, strengthened in many ways. This is one of the most disturbing aspects of that legislation. These national security letters used to be fairly rare. They used to issue about 300 a year. They are now issuing 30,000 a year, a 100-fold increase. This is an extraordinary intrusion into the personal lives of many Americans who are not accused of or even suspected of crimes."
I couldn’t find anything on the FBI site indicating 30,000 NSLs had been issued…but the first article indicated that this (2006) was the first year that the Bush adminstration publicly disclosed the number of NSLs…9,254 in 2005. I’m trying to figure out the incongruity here…
I couldn’t find any official counts for the number of times NSLs have been used on the Dept of Justice site, nor on the FBI’s site, nor on the Government Accounting Office site. Shouldn’t this information be available to the public under the FOIA, or does the USA PATRIOT Act trump that? Is this information classified?
Just trying to figure out often NSLs really are used…
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