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Saturday, May 29, 2004PERMALINK:
ACLU Suit Uncovers The Secrets of Secret Surveillance
Everyone knows by now (or should) that the Patriot Act allows the FBI to conduct surveillance on Internet and email usage. Using so-called National Security Letters (NSLs), the FBI directs Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to provide passwords and identifying information that will allow the government to target people who are plotting terrorism or who are otherwise potentially "dangerous" to national security. I am sure that many of you reading this (and I, of course) have the government in our computers.
The same mechanism of NSLs is used to obtain information from librarians, health care providers, and business records of invididuals and entities. The party from whom the government demands information is forbidden from telling the client that the FBI is being provided information. And the target of the investigation won't know about it until or if he or she is arrested for crime or detained without a charge (say, as a material witness).
Until now, we did not know much about how the government goes about this procedure. Now we do. Thanks to a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in New York in behalf of an unnamed ISP. The government has tried mightily to keep the entire suit under seal, but the federal judge has allowed the ACLU to release some information about the case.
Following is a report on the case, with some interesting heretofore unknown details. Never has the ACLU needed your financial support more. Clearly, it is the only thing standing between us and our fascist government. Read the briefs and supporting documents in the case.
http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/ecassel/