FBI sends about 60 National Security Letters a day to phone companies, financial institutions:

[bigtree]

The Intercept ?@the_intercept 25m25 minutes ago
FBI sends about 60 National Security Letters a day to phone companies, financial institutions: http://interc.pt/1DvvKCF

Froomkin: FBI Flouts Obama Directive to Limit Gag Orders on National Security Letters

Despite the post-Snowden spotlight on mass surveillance, the intelligence community’s easiest end-run around the Fourth Amendment since 2001 has been something called a National Security Letter.

FBI agents can demand that an Internet service provider, telephone company or financial institution turn over its records on any number of people — without any judicial review whatsoever — simply by writing a letter that says the information is needed for national security purposes. The FBI at one point was cranking out over 50,000 such letters a year; by the latest count, it still issues about 60 a day.

The letters look like this:



Recipients are legally required to comply — but it doesn’t stop there. They also aren’t allowed to mention the order to anyone, least of all the person whose data is being searched. Ever. That’s because National Security Letters almost always come with eternal gag orders. Here’s that part:



That means the NSL process utterly disregards the First Amendment as well.

More than a year ago, President Obama announced that he was ordering the Justice Department to terminate gag orders “within a fixed time unless the government demonstrates a real need for further secrecy...”


read more: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/19/fbi-flouts-obama-directive-limit-gag-orders-national-security-letters/

[OnyxCollie]

1. K&R. nt

[woo me with science]

2. K&R We are ruled by criminals.