Unknown Tech Company Defies FBI In Mystery Surveillance Case

Sometime earlier this year, a provider of communication services in the United States – perhaps a phone company, perhaps Twitter – got a letter from the FBI demanding it turn over information on one, or possibly even hundreds, of its customers. The letter instructed the company to never disclose the existence of the demand to anyone – in particular, the target of the investigation.

This sort of letter is not uncommon post-9/11 and with the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act, which gave the FBI increased authority to issue so-called National Security Letters (NSLs). In 2010, the FBI sent more than 24,000 NSLs to ISPs and other companies, seeking information on more than 14,000 individuals in the U.S.

The public heard about none of these letters.

But this time, the company that received the request pushed back. It told the agency that it wanted to tell its customer that he or she was being targeted, which would give the customer a chance to fight the request in court, as a group of Twitter users did last year when the Justice Department sought their records under a different kind of request. The minor defiance in this latest case was enough to land the NSL request in a federal court docket last Friday, where the government filed a request for a court order to force the company to adhere to the gag order.
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NSLs are a powerful tool because an FBI agent looking into a possible anti-terrorism case can essentially self-issue the NSL to a credit bureau, ISP or phone company with only the sign-off of the Special Agent in Charge of their office. The FBI has to merely assert that the information is “relevant” to an investigation.
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Much more: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/mystery-nsl/#more-38938


Yeah, I'm sure all of these requests involve terrorist cases. More Secret Squirrel shite passed by cowardly lawmakers pushed by fearmongering. After 9/11 they in effect rescinded the Bill Of Rights, but the deed is done without our knowledge.

You can't protect yourself against these intrusions because you don't know about them. Kafka couldn't have written a more convoluted bill that impinges on every right we think we have.