National Security Letter

Source: www.hollandsentinel.com --- 37 days ago
In response to Thomas Dunkelberger’s Letter  on President Obama and National Security (Sentinel, Thursday), please, refresh my memory: Who was commander-in-chief on Sept. 11, 2001? I thought it was Bush. He was really adept at keeping this country safe, wasn’t he? The Republicans hate Obama because he’s the president, right? Most of them hated Bill Clinton, but at least there aren’t over 4,000 war casualties because of Clinton. Get over it. President Obama was the people’s choice. He hasn’t destroyed nearly as much as Bush destroyed. I was a Republican. Bush made an independent out of me. I voted Republican in the last election, but I don’t ever want to be so one-sided that I can’t see the good in a Democrat or independent. Betty Henagin Park Township ...

Source: www.hollandsentinel.com --- 39 days ago
First, Mr. Obama changed the interrogation policies of this great country with his Executive Order 13491. Then he ordered the shutdown of the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities with Executive Order 13492 and eliminated all previous administration’s detention policies with his Executive Order 13493. Next, we saw the commander-in-chief canceling plans to station an anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Then, he wanted to see the F-22 Raptor program, which is our country’s most current and state-of-the-art military fighter, eliminated. If making these changes weren’t bad enough, the White House vetoed funding for our military and we have yet to see Congress act to correct this dire situation. His policies regarding terrorism have become so inept that he doesn’t know how to call a terrorist a “terrorist” and has allowed such events as Fort Hood and the Christmas Day bombing to take place. He’s followed by giving habeas corpus rights to terrorists, and causing hundreds of millions of dollars of tax dollar burden just to try these jerks. Now we see Mr. Obama cutting back on NASA funding, which will cause at least 7000 jobs to be lost in Florida and severely set back programs where much of this country’s highest technologies are developed. Finally, Obama now wants to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which will completely undermine the culture and structure of every branch of this country’s military services ...

Source: www.your-story.org --- 46 days ago
President Obama Should Appoint Independent Panel to Evaluate Climate Change-National Security Link in Wake of Climate Science Scandals, Former Commander of Pacific Fleet Says in Open Letter PR Newswire WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Ahead of the State of the Union address and in the wake of recent and ongoing climate science scandals, President Obama [...] ...

Source: twitter.com --- 53 days ago
reasonmag: Why Use a National Security Letter When You Have Post-It Notes? http://bit.ly/5gi5xO ...

Source: www.aclu.org --- 53 days ago
Revelations Necessitate Congressional Oversight And Patriot Act Revisions FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: (202) 675-2312; media@dcaclu.org (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org WASHINGTON – A report released today by the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) on the FBI's use of National Security Letters (NSLs) and so-called "exigent letters" reveals a systemic, widespread abuse of power. The FBI's authority to issue NSLs was widely expanded by the Patriot Act and it has been increasingly used to collect private information on American citizens without court approval. Congress recently extended three unrelated provisions of the Patriot Act set to expire last year until February 28, 2010. There are several bills in both the House and Senate that address those provisions as well as the NSL statute. Today's OIG report details the FBI's use of exigent letters, or emergency letters, to gain Americans' private phone records for investigations when no emergency existed and has significant and troubling redactions in portions dealing with those phone records. The report also details the bureau's use of exigent letters to gain information on journalists in violation of the Attorney General Guidelines governing criminal and terrorism investigations. Today's audit follows two prior OIG reports on the FBI's use of NSLs that found serious breaches of department regulations and multiple potential violations of the law. "Given this r ...

Source: reason.com --- 53 days ago
In a report (PDF) issued today, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine shows that the FBI routinely broke the law for several years by demanding telephone records through informal methods that were not authorized by statute. The abuses, which involved thousands of records, are especially striking because it is not very hard for the FBI to obtain this information legally. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) allows the bureau to demand records from phone companies through a "National Security Letter" (NSL) signed by the director or an official he designates. Under FBI policy, any special agent in charge can sign an NSL, which simply states that the records sought are "relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." Beginning in 2003, FBI officials began dodging this minimal requirement by asking telecommunications carriers to suppy records without the legally required NSL "due to exigent circumstances" and promising to provide an NSL after the fact. These so-called exigent letters, which were often used when no emergency actually existed, were an extralegal contrivance that violated ECPA, bureau policy, and guidelines issued by the attorney general. The retroactive NSLs promised by the exigent letters often failed to appear because there was no authorized investigation to which they could be linked. To fix that problem, FBI officials resor ...

Source: gangstergovernment.squarespace.com --- 54 days ago
Today, in response to news reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) repeatedly broke U.S. law between 2002 and 2006 in accessing private telephone records, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, reiterated the pressing need for National Security Letter (NSL) reform. Nadler’s legislation, the National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009, much of which was incorporated into the USA PATRIOT Amendments Act of 2009, is essential in order to reform and improve intelligence gathering, and to protect Americans from unnecessary and illegal invasions of their privacy. Nadler has chaired Subcommittee hearings on NSL authority in recent years and plans to hold future hearings following the release of a Department of Justice report on FBI abuses. Nadler issued the following statement: “I am appalled but not particularly surprised to read reports that the FBI illegally collected phone records for years on thousands of Americans. This unconstitutional disregard for civil liberties is unfortunately in line with the culture of abuse of power which thrived under the Bush administration. Between 2001 and 2008, many of the checks that were in place to prevent overreach by the executive branch were systematically dismantled, always in the name of fighting terrorism. Today’s news on the FBI’s illegal actions only serves to underscore the urgency f ...

Source: tomwillerer.com --- 93 days ago
“When asked if he has ever responded to a National Security Letter demanding that Google turn over information to the government, Schmidt smiles. “We are subject to laws that I don’t like—you can’t sue against Security laws.” Privately, however, he has told friends to keep off a computer anything they want to keep private. That is difficult, as Schmidt himself acknowledges. “In the world I’m in,” he says, “everybody works all the time.”” - When Google Runs Your Life - Forbes.com ...

Source: www.weblogbahamas.com --- 110 days ago
Dear Minister Turnquest: I wanted to write and thank you for calming my state of alarm on Friday past, when I heard of the brazen robbery against 18 of our valued tourist. I suppose I should not have been alarmed,... This is a content summary only. Visit our website for full links, other content, and more! ...

Source: twitter.com --- 130 days ago
CitizenCassidy: RT @EFF: #patriotact more good news: another bad amendment to weaken National Security Letter reform fails in House Judic. Comm, 18-11. ...

Source: ibloga.blogspot.com --- 136 days ago
HOW THE US GOVERNMENT IS ELIMINATING FREE SPEECH FROM THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE UPDATED : I made an error on this post. I posted that there were no archives for September 11, 2001. I was wrong. I accidentally looked at September 11, 2002. I don't know how I made that mistake. Sorry. The September 11, 2001 Internet Archive for CNN is exactly what you would expect it to be. Back in May of 2008, this article appeared in Wired Magazine. The actual title of the article was "FBI Targets Internet Archives With Secret 'National Security Letter', Loses". Sadly, it does not seem to have worked out that way. First, let's read the 5-2008 Wired article. From Wired : The Internet Archive, a project to create a digital library of the web for posterity, successfully fought a secret government Patriot Act order for records about one of its patrons and won the right to make the order public, civil liberties groups announced Wednesday morning. On November 26, 2007, the FBI served a controversial National Security Letter (.pdf) on the Internet Archive ’s founder Brewster Kahle, asking for records about one of the library’s registered users, asking for the user’s name, address and activity on the site. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Internet Archive’s lawyers, fought the NSL, challenging its constitutionality in a December 14 complaint (.pdf) to a federal court in San Francisco. The FBI agreed on April 21 to withdraw the Letter and unseal th ...

Source: www.cdt.org --- 136 days ago
10/29/2009 Author:  Greg Nojeim Security & Surveillance PATRIOT Act Grandchildren:  NSL A coalition of 20 civil liberties organizations, including the Center for Democracy & Technology, released a Letter today endorsing H.R. 3845, the USA Patriot Amendments Act. The bill was introduced by the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Subcommittee Chairs Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA). The Senate version of the legislation, the PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act, S. 1692, has not drawn a similar level of support in the civil liberties community, largely because of the different ways the bills deal with National Security Letters. CDT has prepared a chart that compares the two bills. An NSL is a simple form document issued by the FBI and other intelligence agencies that requires Internet Service Providers, banks and other financial institutions, and credit agencies to turn over records about their customers. There is no judicial authorization; the letters are issued when the agency seeking the records decides that they are relevant to its own investigation. The letters are usually accompanied by a “gag” order that, with limited exceptions, bars anyone from disclosing that information was sought or obtained with an NSL. Two Inspector General reports have found widespread abuse and misuse of NSLs. read more ...

Source: thewesterner.blogspot.com --- 140 days ago
A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the government can continue to gag an internet servicer provider who received a National Security Letter from the FBI -- five years ago. Under the Patriot Act, the FBI can use such letters to demand personal records about customers from internet providers, financial institutions and credit card companies without a warrant, and then keep the companies from disclosing even that they'd received such a Letter. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the ISP. The government maintains that revealing information about the Letter could compromise ongoing investigations, even though the Letter itself was sent five years ago and has been the subject of press accounts. The court also ruled that the FBI can continue to suppress an "attachment" to the NSL Doe received, the ACLU said. The ACLU "argued that the attachment, if disclosed, would show that the FBI tried to obtain records that it was not entitled to obtain under the NSL statute."... read more ...

Source: www.legitgov.org --- 144 days ago
--Internet Service Provider Still Can't Speak About Secret FBI Demand For Records Issued More Than Five Years Ago A federal court today ruled that the government can continue to enforce a five-year-old gag order on an Internet service provider (ISP) that the FBI served with a National Security Letter (NSL) many years ago. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the ISP. Under a Patriot Act provision, the FBI can use NSLs to demand personal records about innocent customers from ISPs, financial institutions and credit companies without prior judicial approval, and then bar NSL recipients from disclosing anything about the record demand. ...

Source: twitter.com --- 156 days ago
SPressfield: Just posted to the blog: An Open Letter to Gen. James Jones, National Security Advisor http://tinyurl.com/ykp24fd ...

Source: blog.stevenpressfield.com --- 157 days ago
[This week has been a rough one for our troops in Afghanistan--and a contentions one among policymakers here in the States. I'm going to interrupt our ongoing interview with tribal chief Ajmal Khan Zazai to post this open Letter. The same note was sent by e-mail two days ago to the parties below.] TO: Gen. James Jones, Adm. Michael Mullen, Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. Stanley McChrystal FROM: Steven Pressfield SUBJ: An opportunity in Afghanistan Dear Gen. Jones, I’m the author of Gates of Fire . I read in a newspaper interview a few years ago that Gates is your favorite book–and you and I have corresponded briefly by e-mail in the past. I cite this connection in the hope that it will give me enough credibility in your eyes that you’ll keep reading this note. I want to draw your attention to a situation in a valley in Afghanistan that may afford an opportunity for real progress in the Afghan campaign. Please bear with me for a little background. A pro-American Tribal Chief For some months I’ve been writing a blog called “It’s the Tribes, Stupid.” Its address is http://blog.stevenpressfield.com. The thesis of the blog is aligned very much with Gen. Petraeus’ and Gen. McChrystal’s COIN strategy of “protect the people.” Recently I’ve been running a series on the blog–a multi-part interview with an Afghan tribal chief, Ajmal Khan Zazai of Paktia province. Chief Zazai holds the paramountcy of eleven tribes in the Zazi valley. He’s an extraordinary ...

Source: twitter.com --- 164 days ago
Libertywriter: ACLU: FBI still misusing National Security Letter gag orders http://bit.ly/1ACuUy ...