p2pnet.net News:- When you hear US president George W. Bush condemning ‘tourists’, he means ‘terrorists’.

It may be a joke in some places. But it’s no laughing matter for Americans and those around the world who are linked to the US, whether they like it or not. Their privacy and other rights are being relentlessly carved away as the Bush/Cheney administration uses the threat of terrorism to impose measures it wouldn’t normally be able to even mention out loud.

Now, “The Bush administration asked a federal appeals court Friday to restore its ability to compel Internet service providers to turn over information about their customers or subscribers as part of its fight against terrorism,” says Wired News.

“The legal filing with the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New York comes amid a debate in Congress over renewal of the Patriot Act and whether to expand the FBI’s power to seek records without the approval of a judge or grand jury.”

New York District Judge Victor Marrero last year blocked the government from conducting secret searches of communications records on the grounds that saying the law that authorized them wrongly barred legal challenges and imposed a gag order on affected businesses, says Wired, going on:

"The ruling came in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and an internet access firm that received a national security letter from the FBI demanding records. The identity of the firm remains secret."

Under discussion are NSLs – National Security Letters.

As we posted a year ago, "FBI agents use National Security Letters (NSLs) to demand detailed information about people’s private Net communications from ISPs, web mail providers and other communications service providers.

"Authorized by the USA PATRIOT Act, they’re issued directly by FBI agents without court supervision and without probable cause."

The Wired story quotes ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) attorney Jameel Jaffer as saying it and the unidentified firm filed a lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality because it doesn’t contain a provision to challenge the FBI demands for documents.

"Most people who get NSLs don’t know they can bring a challenge in court because the statute doesn’t say they can," he says nithe report. "No one has filed a motion to quash in 20 years."

The ban on disclosure, "is so broad that the ACLU initially filed the suit under seal and negotiated for weeks on a version that could be released to the public," says Wired News, adding:

"Previously censored material released several months after Marrero’s ruling included innocuous material the government wanted withheld, the ACLU said, including the phrase ‘national security’ and this sentence from a statement by an FBI agent: ‘I am a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’."

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) filed a friend-of-the court brief supporting the ACLU suit.

With NSLs, "the FBI can see what websites you visit, what mailing lists you subscribe to, who you correspond with, and much more – all without judicial oversight of any kind," it said.

Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net

See:-
Wired News – Big Brother Tries to Muscle ISPs, May 28, 2005
without court supervision – National Security Letters challenged, p2pnet, May 25, 2004

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2005 at 4:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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