What do the ACLU, the former director of the NSA and a tech industry lawyer all have in common (and this is not a joke)? They believe that the government's recent request to let the FBI get Americans' internet use records in national security investigations without going to court, and without any suspicion of wrongdoing, is a huge expansion of authority that would open floodgates of sensitive information to the FBI.
National security letters (NSLs) are rather informal requests for records the FBI can use to obtain people's communication, financial and credit information. These requests are not approved by a court, and the FBI does not have to suspect you of actually being a terrorist, spy or criminal; the only thing they have to do to get your records is certify to themselves (not a court) that you are "relevant" to an investigation. To make matters worse, the FBI has the power to prohibit any internet service provider, bank or credit company from which it demands sensitive customer records from ever disclosing anything about the record demand. (The ACLU has challenged the constitutionality of this "gag" power in three cases). An audit by the Department of Justice Inspector General found that in the mid-2000s, the FBI issued upwards of 50,000 national security letters, often to get information about U.S. citizens, and sometimes to get info on people two or three times removed from an actual suspect. There is currently no information on the total numbers of NSLs issued every year.
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