FBI Forced To Back Down On Secret Info Request To Internet Archive

from the civil-liberties-matter dept

Wed, May 7th 2008 8:33pm — Mike Masnick

Congress curtailed the FBI's ability to use National Security Letters (NSLs) a few years ago after it became clear that the FBI was widely abusing the process to request information from organizations with no judicial oversight and with built in gag orders forbidding recipients from talking about receiving the letters. However, the FBI is still using the letters in some cases. Last fall, it sent one to Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive, demanding info on an Archive user while forbidding Kahle from talking about the letter to anyone but his lawyers. Kahle, the EFF and the ACLU fought back in court and have won, getting the FBI to rescind the demand and also removing part of the gag order, allowing Kahle to say he received the letter (though not discussing what info it demanded). As the EFF points out, this should serve as a blueprint for how others can challenge questionable NSLs as well.

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Filed Under: aclu, brewster kahle, civil liverties, eff, fbi, gag order, internet archive, national security letters, nsl

9 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 8 May 2008 @ 12:17am

fuck the pigs

brb fbi
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Jake, 8 May 2008 @ 2:00am

Oh, For...!
How stupid can a management culture get? You'd think after a couple of decades trying to exorcise the spectre of J. Edgar Hoover that someone might have thought, "We've been entrusted with these powers on the understanding that we don't abuse them, and we'll really miss 'em if they get taken off of us." But I guess that kind of thinking doesn't get you promoted from field work to the office, so a sizeable percentage of the FBI's credibility and professional reputation goes down the crapper for a load of information that might not even have helped anyway, along with -at least potentially- the ability to build a case in a timely fashion on occasions where an NSL is appropriate.
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oregonnerd, 8 May 2008 @ 4:47am

and the visible is the insignificant
The most powerful security agency in the country almost never gets mentioned. Perhaps the spectre of freedom is more frightening than that of bondage...
Glenn
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chris (profile), 8 May 2008 @ 6:18am

Re: Oh, For...!
...someone might have thought, "We've been entrusted with these powers on the understanding that we don't abuse them, and we'll really miss 'em if they get taken off of us." ...a sizeable percentage of the FBI's credibility and professional reputation goes down the crapper for a load of information that might not even have helped anyway, along with -at least potentially- the ability to build a case in a timely fashion on occasions where an NSL is appropriate.

it's funny that you think this is about law enforcement. it's about some fbi types on a power trip. you see it in cops, the military, and government, it makes sense that it happens in the intelligence community as well.

this is about people in positions of power ignoring responsibility and propriety and doing something because they can, not because they should. this is why all power should be limited and those wielding it should always be held accountable.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 May 2008 @ 6:29am

I find people hate the bad habits of others that are characteristic of themselves. We are supreme hypocrites. The hippie culture that I grew up in hated "the man" but they didn't know the real human beings, they only knew the caricatures of their imagination. They begged the question: if you don't know the real person, the flesh and blood human beings who do the job, then the only person left for you to use as source material for the caricature is yourself.

Hitler dehumanized. The act of turning a human being into a glove is what enables many rapes, murders, tortures, and the greatest atrocities the human race perpetrates on itself. The cure for that is true understanding, not just the stuff hollywood calls understanding. When you understand a person as they understand themself - perfectly understanding the lies they tell themselves, the locations of their identity, as well as the truth, then you can not help but love that person as they love themselves ... at least within the context of that understanding.

So we are talking about a faceless FBI comprised of people we really dont know or understand. Are we making this caricature from the darker substances of our own selves? What about people whose life blood is to protect the freedom of this country who every day go to work at the fbi - do we know them by name? Do we understand them as they understand themselves?

If we are talking in a dehumanized ignorance comprised of the dark tailings of our own souls then why do we have the right to direct it at people we have never met?
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mike allen, 8 May 2008 @ 6:54am

if
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mike allen, 8 May 2008 @ 6:56am

if
if ever i get told by any cop or authority not to talk about them or a letter they sent me FIRST STOP MY BLOG SECOND T.V AND RADIO.THIRD STOP NEWSPAPERS
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some random guy, 8 May 2008 @ 9:08am

Re:
To AC#5:

Dude! 6:29am and you are already stoned. Right on!
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Someone who hates the FBI, 13 May 2009 @ 6:46am

The FBI thinks they are untouchable, but nothing goes unnoticed and no one lives as a tyrant without enemies. In the end oppressors have one thing in common, their hatred for the powers that be. Death to capitalism and to FBI, CIA
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