Twitter Reveals Two National Security Letters After Gag Orders Lifted; Rightly Complains About Gag Orders

from the first-amendment? dept

In the last few months, we've seen multiple internet companies finally able to reveal National Security Letters (NSLs) they had received from the Justice Department, demanding information from the companies, while simultaneously saddling those companies with gag orders, forbidding them to speak about the orders. It started last June, when Yahoo was the first company to publicly acknowledge such an NSL. In December, Google revealed 8 NSLs around the same time that the Internet Archive was able to reveal it had received an NSL as well. Earlier this month, Cloudflare was finally able to reveal the NSL it had received (which a Senate staffer had told the company was impossible -- and the company's top lawyer was bound by the gag order, unable to correct that staffer).

And now we can add Twitter to the list. On Friday, the company announced that the gag order on two NSLs had been lifted. There's one from 2015 and another from June of last year. Twitter appears relieved that it's finally able to reveal these, but quite frustrated that it was gagged at all.

If you don't recall, Twitter has been much more aggressive than basically all of the other tech companies in challenging these gag orders. Back in 2014, Twitter sued the government, claiming it was a First Amendment violation to enforce these gag orders. That was after most of the other major internet companies had come to an agreement over how and when they could report such requests. Twitter, thankfully, felt that the agreement between the DOJ and internet companies was way too stifling and has fought it:

Twitter remains unsatisfied with restrictions on our right to speak more freely about national security requests we may receive. We continue to push for the legal ability to speak more openly on this topic in our lawsuit against the U.S. government, Twitter v. Lynch.

We continue to believe that reporting in government-mandated bands does not provide meaningful transparency to the public or those using our service. However, the government argues that any numerical reporting more detailed than the bands in the USA Freedom Act would be classified and as such not protected by the First Amendment. They further argue that Twitter is not entitled to obtain information from the government about the processes followed in classifying a version Twitter’s 2013 Transparency Report or in classifying/declassifying decisions associated with the allowed bands. We would like a meaningful opportunity to challenge government restrictions when “classification” prevents speech on issues of public importance.

Our next hearing in the Lynch case is scheduled for February 14, 2017. Concurrently, Twitter is using the statutory means provided in the USA Freedom Act to seek more transparency into similar NSL requests, and will provide updates as they become available.

That last paragraph makes it fairly clear (though it should have been obvious) that Twitter is still gagged on more NSLs. And that's kind of a key thing in all of these recent "releases" of NSLs. They're only released when the government lifts the gag orders on them -- and that's very troubling. There is a long history in this country of the government abusing its powers to spy on the public. If it alone gets to decide when to reveal the nature of its surveillance efforts, then the public really has no insight or understanding into just how widespread the practice might be.

And the most ridiculous thing in all of this is that it's hard to fathom any actual justification for this kind of thing. Yes, you can understand not necessarily revealing an ongoing investigation into a crime, but the gag orders go much further, barring companies from even admitting how many NSLs they receive. It's hard to see how revealing that kind of information -- in any way -- compromises law enforcement or intelligence investigations. The only thing it serves to do is to hide from the public the scale of the surveillance.

Filed Under: doj, first amendment, gag order, national security letter, nsl, nsls
Companies: twitter

Google Publishes Eight National Security Letters That Have Been Freed From Their Gag Orders

from the legislatively-enforced-transparency dept

Google has managed to lift gag orders on eight of the National Security Letters it's received from the FBI over the last five years. In a blog post that thankfully provides more details than its last NSL "release," Google notes that last year's surveillance reform bill has a lot to do with it even being able to do this.

In 2015, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act, which allowed companies like Google to make more granular disclosures about National Security Letters they receive. In addition, the Act restricts the use of indefinite gag restrictions that prevent providers from ever notifying customers or talking about the demands. The Department of Justice (DOJ) must now regularly review disclosure restrictions in NSLs and lift those that are no longer needed.

The last NSL announcement Google made wasn't much of an announcement. The NSL wasn't released and the company had very little to say about the single NSL, other than that the gag order had been lifted.

This release is better, in that there's an actual release involved. All eight of the NSLs have been published. Most ask for name, address, and length of service for the targeted account holders. Two of them (here [PDF] and here [PDF]), however, also ask for "electronic communications transactional records for all accounts" -- presumably email metadata, but could also cover records generated by other Google services, like Hangouts.

Google notes that the DOJ has published new guidelines for the handling of NSL gag orders, which mostly involves agents having the right boilerplate on hand when issuing one. The DOJ also gives itself a three-year window for gag order reviews, basically reflecting suggestions made by a DC federal judge presiding over a NSL gag order case. Fortunately, the USA Freedom Act allows recipients to challenge these orders every year, so no one really has to restrict themselves to the DOJ's extended timetable.

NSLs are still the FBI's favorite way to obtain identifying information from service providers. It issues thousands of NSLs every year and even uses the self-issued demand letters to route around rejections by the FISA court. That the agency issues so many is likely due to its ability to open investigations that aren't officially termed "investigations." It's able to open "threat assessments" and "preliminary investigations" without providing any substantive reason for doing so. During these preliminary stages, the FBI grabs every third-party record it can -- anything collectible without leaving a judicial paper trail. Add to that the fact that these pieces of paper come with federally-enforced silence by default, and they're the perfect storm of opacity and unaccountability.

Filed Under: doj, fbi, national security letters, nsls, transparency, usa freedom act
Companies: google

Court Says FBI Must Review Its NSL Gag Orders Every Three Years, Rather Than Almost Never

from the a-small-shift-in-the-secrecy-status-quo dept

The magical, wonderful, oft-abused National Security Letters have been deemed Constitutional, thanks to the vague promise of reviews by courts and government agencies to determine whether or not the normally-indefinite gag orders accompanying them can stay in place.

The USA Freedom Act took away the "indefinite" part of the equation, stipulating that NSL gag orders must be justified by periodic reviews. Unfortunately, "periodic" was left open-ended. The language only specifies "appropriate intervals." It does place the burden on the government to prove that a NSL's gag order is still necessary, but makes no specific demands on how often the government should have to make these assertions.

The FISA DC District Court, however, has specified what a "periodic review" should entail -- at least narrowing down what period "periodic" should mean.

In this order [PDF], a redacted company exercised its USA Freedom Act option to demand a review of gag orders connected to two NSLs it had received. After some in camera presentations to the FISA court, along with some discussion between the NSL recipient and the FBI, it was agreed that the gag orders could stay in place for the time being, but that the FBI should be given the burden of specifying a time frame for periodic reviews, rather than forcing the recipient to file petitions repeatedly until the gag orders were finally determined to be no longer necessary.

The order redacts the number of years these gag orders have been in place, but it's safe to assume the number hidden behind the gray box is larger than one.

The court looks to the Attorney General's own gag order termination policy, crafted in response to stipulations in the USA Freedom Act. Unfortunately, it doesn't do much to narrow down what sort of "period" a "periodic review" covers. The policy says the FBI only needs to review its NSL gag orders every three years or at the close of an investigation. As the court notes, this is far from satisfactory.

Such procedures, as [REDACTED] points out, leave several large loopholes. First, there is no further review beyond these two, meaning that where a nondisclosure provision is justified at the close of an investigation, it could remain in place indefinitely thereafter. Second, these procedures by their own terms apply only to "investigations that close and/or reach their three-year anniversary date on or after the effective date of these procedures;" as a result "a large swath of NSL nondisclosure provisions… may never be reviewed and could remain unlimited in duration." Third, for long-running investigations, there could be an extended period of time -- indefinite for unsolved cases -- between the third-year anniversary and the close date.

The court points out that the loopholes pretty much nullify the legislation's demand for periodic NSL gag order reviews. The court ordered the FBI to explain why it should not be able to handle annual reviews of its NSL nondisclosure requirements.

The FBI complained that doing so would be "cumbersome." The court agreed that reviewing every NSL every year would be too burdensome for the agency. However, the decision just glides past the jaw-dropping number of NSLs issued by the FBI -- 16,000 annually -- without further comment.

So, the FBI, having burdened itself by using NSLs rather than court orders or warrants, isn't required to perform annual reviews of its gag orders. Fortunately, it's no longer allowed to simply follow the loophole-filled policy issued by the Attorney General. The opinion notes that the AG's policy "seems inconsistent with the intent of the law." Recent FISA court addition Judge James Boasberg pulls a number out of the air and declares it good:

The Court believes that, given both the facts and the circumstances of this particular case and the legal authority discussed above, a triennial review fairly balances the specific burdens on the FBI against the countervailing interest that [REDACTED] has in avoiding a lengthy and indefinite nondisclosure bar.

The gag orders that are currently in place (and have been in place for an indeterminate number of years) are allowed to remain. The FBI will have to review these every three years from now on. This is better than the AG's policy and much better than the open-ended language of the USA Freedom Act.

But it's unclear whether this order is meant to govern the FBI's other NSLs, or simply the two involved in this particular case. There's nothing in the opinion that suggests this is a blanket policy change, but as the court notes earlier in the decision, it seems likely that anything granted to this particular entity will be requested by others in the same position. Given the reasoning used to make this determination, it would be difficult to imagine a situation where similarly-situated recipients would not be able to avail themselves of the court-ordered review process -- rather than being forced to file review petition after review petition for the rest of whatever.

Filed Under: doj, fbi, fisa, fisa court, fisc, gag orders, nsl, nsls, reviews

Senators Wyden And Heinrich Speak Out Against Expanding FBI's Ability To Warrantlessly Spy On Your Communications

from the don't-allow-it dept

We've been writing for a while now how the FBI has been trying to rewrite a key part of the PATRIOT Act to massively expand its ability to use National Security Letters (NSLs) to get email and browser information with no warrant and no oversight. Despite the fact that the FBI was asking for this just days before the Orlando shooting, right after it, a bunch of Senators, led by John McCain, used the opportunity to fast track that legislative change, cynically pointing to the Orlando shooting as a reason why it's needed (despite it having nothing whatsoever to do with that). That effort failed, but just barely -- and it's expected to be brought up again shortly for another vote.

Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich are trying to convince people that this is a bad, bad idea. They've written a short but compelling article on how this is a massive abuse of privacy, and why the FBI absolutely does not need this power.

Given what web browsing history can reveal, there is little information that could be more intimate. If you know that a person is visiting the website of a mental health professional, or a substance-abuse support group, or a particular political organization, or a particular dating site, you know a tremendous amount of private and personal information about him or her. That’s what you get when you can get access to their web browsing history without a court order.



They note that there are real threats, but this change in the law won't help to stop those threats. Indeed, the FBI already has the ability to get this information -- it just needs to submit to a tiny bit of oversight:

But the FBI already has at least two separate ways they can quickly obtain these electronic records with court oversight.
 
First, under the Patriot Act’s section 215, the FBI can get a court order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain a suspect’s electronic records. The president’s surveillance review group, which included former top intelligence officials, said this kind of court oversight should be required for this kind of information.
 
Second, in emergency situations where the FBI believes it needs to move immediately, it already has the authority to get these records first, and then settle up with the court afterward. This authority comes from section 102 of the USA FREEDOM Act, which is based on language Sen. Wyden authored and we both strongly supported.
 


This effort to expand the FBI's surveillance powers should be a non-starter and it's depressing that so many Senators are willing to grant the FBI near total freedom to spy on our electronic records without a warrant. Given the FBI's history of abusing its surveillance powers, sometimes for political gain, shouldn't Congress be restricting such powers, rather than expanding them?

Stay tuned, later today, on the Techdirt Podcast, we'll have Senator Wyden discussing why this is so problematic.

Filed Under: fbi, martin heinrich, national security letters, nsls, ron wyden, surveillance

Leak Reveals Secret FBI Guidelines That Basically Give Them Free Rein To Spy On Journalists And Sources

from the not-cool,-doj dept

Eleven months ago, we wrote about a lawsuit filed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation seeking to get a copy of the DOJ's infamous new rules for spying on journalists. The new rules came about after it had come out that the DOJ had spied on Associated Press reporters as well as lied to a court to claim that Fox News reporter James Rosen was a co-conspirator in a leak investigation. To date, the DOJ has steadfastly refused to reveal the rules.

Thankfully, someone has now leaked the rules, or at least the 2013 version of some of the rules, which show that, contrary to what then Attorney General Eric Holder had suggested, it's still ridiculously easy for the FBI to spy on reporters and their sources in trying to hunt down a leak. In fact, it appears that these rules, around the use of NSLs are actually separate from the rules that Holder was talking about -- meaning that there's an entirely separate path for the DOJ to spy on journalists. The rules show that the FBI can just issue a National Security Letter (NSL), the mechanism that the FBI has been known to regularly abuse without consequence and which it's trying to expand. The "process" by which the media is supposedly protected under these new rules is that if someone in the DOJ is seeking an NSL to get phone records of someone in the media, they need to get some permission from someone else in the DOJ first: This is the fox watching the henhouse. These are not restrictions, these are just the DOJ getting to ask itself if it really wants to spy on these journalists, and the DOJ telling itself "sure, go ahead." There's a further exception that if someone is a member of the media, but the FBI "suspects" they're an intelligence officer or affiliated with a foreign intelligence service, "no additional approval requirements" are needed. So, as with the Rosen case, the FBI can just declare him a "co-conspirator" and voila, no approval necessary.

As the Freedom of the Press Foundation explains in response to this leak, this completely undermines the claims by the DOJ that there were strict controls on spying on journalists:

First, the rules clearly indicate—in two separate places—that NSLs can specifically be used to conduct surveillance on reporters and sources in leak investigations. This is quite disturbing, since the Justice Department spent two years trying to convince the public that it updated its “Media Guidelines” to create a very high and restrictive bar for when and how they could spy on journalists using regular subpoenas and court orders. These leaked rules prove that the FBI and DOJ can completely circumvent the Media Guidelines and just use an NSL in total secrecy.

Second, the DOJ told the New York Times in 2013 that, despite NSLs being exempt from the media guidelines, they were still used under a “strict legal regime.” Well, the “strict legal regime” here is basically non-existent. The only extra step the FBI has to go through to spy on journalists with an NSL—besides the normal, lax NSL procedures, which they have flagrantly and repeatedly violated over the past decade—is essentially get the sign off of a superior in the Justice Department. That’s it! They don’t have to even go through the motions for following any of the several rules laid out in the DOJ media guidelines: like get the Attorney General to sign off, exhaust all other means of investigation, alerting and negotiating with the affected media organization, making sure what is being sought is essential to the investigation, etc.

There's a separate important question here too: why were these rules kept secret? There is no national security reason to keep this secret. It does not reveal anything that helps anyone avoid surveillance. As Freedom of the Press Foundation notes, it appears the only reason to keep this secret is to avoid the embarrassment.

The information that has been redacted here by the Justice Department – and which they are fighting to keep secret in court – is incredibly mundane. The fact that the FBI has to get another person in the bureaucracy to sign off on a particular investigation should not be a state secret, nor would it remotely harm any ongoing investigation, nor would “tip off” any alleged criminals to how to evade surveillance.

The only reason to keep these rules secret, it seems, is that it’s incredibly embarrassing for the FBI to admit that they can use NSLs in leak cases to go after journalists. The fact that the FBI and DOJ are keeping these rules is outrageous, and they should use this opportunity to officially release the rules—and any updates to them—immediately.

The Foundation is also planning to continue its lawsuit for two reasons. First, as mentioned in the quote above, it wants the DOJ to officially release the rules, and, more importantly, it believes that the rules may have been updated since these 2013 rules were published.

The whole thing, once again, shows just how ridiculous this administration has been concerning protecting the rights of journalists to talk to confidential sources. "The most transparent administration in history" once again seems to be the exact opposite. Undermining the freedom of the press and spying on reporters and their sources is shameful. It's the activity of tyrants and insecure dictators, not democratically elected governments.

Filed Under: doj, fbi, journalists, national security letters, nsls, oversight, surveillance
Companies: freedom of the press foundation

Senator Wyden Puts A Hold On Intelligence Authorization Bill To Block FBI Warrantless Surveillance

from the there-goes-that-wyden-guy-again dept

As we've discussed, some surveillance/law enforcement hawks have tried to rush through a law to expand the power of national security letters (NSLs) to paper over the long standing abuse of NSLs, by saying that they can use those documents (which have basically no oversight and don't require a warrant) to collect a ton of private info, including email info and web browsing histories. The rushed vote on this -- stupidly citing the Orlando attacks, despite the fact it would have done nothing to stop that -- failed but just barely. Basically, if Senator Dianne Feinstein were able to attend the vote, it likely would have passed. The support for it was one vote shy, and then Sen. Mitch McConnell changed his vote for procedural reasons to be able to bring it back for a quick follow up vote.

Now, as Congress rushes towards that vote, Senator Ron Wyden stepped up today to use his power as a Senator to put a hold on the entire Intelligence Authorization bill. He gave a short floor speech explaining his reasons.

I certainly appreciate the FBI’s interest in obtaining records about potential suspects quickly. But Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges are very capable of reviewing and approving requests for court orders in a timely fashion. And section 102 of the recently-passed USA FREEDOM Act gives the FBI new authority to obtain records immediately in emergency situations, and then seek court review after the fact. I strongly supported the passage of that provision, which I first proposed in 2013. By contrast, I do not believe it is appropriate to give the government broad new surveillance authorities just because FBI officials do not like doing paperwork. If the FBI’s own process for requesting court orders is too slow, then the appropriate solution is bureaucratic reforms, not a major expansion of government surveillance authorities.

The fact of the matter is that ‘electronic communication transaction records’ can reveal a great deal of personal information about individual Americans. If government officials know that an individual routinely emails a mental health professional, or sends texts to a substance abuse support group, or visits a particular dating website, or the website of a particular political group, then the government knows a lot about that individual. Our Founding Fathers rightly argued that such intrusive searches should be approved by independent judges.

It is worth noting that President George W. Bush’s administration reached the same conclusion. In November 2008, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel advised the FBI that National Security Letters could only be used to obtain certain types of records, and this list did not include electronic communication transaction records. The FBI has unfortunately not adhered to this guidance, and has at times continued to issue National Security Letters for electronic communications records. A number of companies that have received these overly broad National Security Letters have rightly challenged them as improper. Broadening the National Security Letter law to include electronic communication transaction records would be a significant expansion of the FBI’s statutory authority.

And unfortunately, the FBI’s track record with its existing National Security Letter authorities includes a substantial amount of abuse and misuse. These problems have been extensively documented in reports by the Justice Department Inspector General from 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2014. As one of these reports noted, “the FBI [has] used NSLs in violation of applicable statutes, Attorney General guidelines, and internal FBI policies.” No one in the Senate should be surprised by this pattern of abuse and misuse, because this is unfortunately what happens when federal agencies are given broad surveillance powers with no judicial oversight. In my judgment, it would be reckless to expand this particular surveillance authority when the FBI has so frequently failed to use its existing authorities responsibly.

Of course, to some extent, this is little more than show. It's pretty clear that McConnell has the votes to get this passed, which is why Wyden has now taken the dramatic step of putting a hold on the bill. But the 60 votes here are usually what is necessary to break a hold (which remains a widely used, but informal, Senate rule). So in the end this won't mean much, but we've been here before again and again and again. And by now it should be clear: When Ron Wyden says that the government is abusing laws to spy on Americans, he's not lying. We shouldn't then paper over that abuse and give the FBI or the NSA or anyone else greater powers to spy on Americans. Because they use that power and they don't tend to use it wisely and judiciously.

Can anyone explain, seriously, why the emergency powers that allow the FBI to do the search in an emergency and then get the warrant after are somehow too problematic? Or why the FBI can't go and get a warrant at all? It's a petty quick process for them these days. This whole effort seems designed solely to wipe out what little oversight there is of the FBI and its use of national security letters.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, hold, intelligence authorization, mitch mcconnell, national security letters, nsls, ron wyden, warrants

Senate Just Barely Rejects Plan To Expand FBI Surveillance Powers

from the two-votes dept

Just yesterday we wrote about how the Senate was, somewhat ridiculously, rapidly pushing forward plans on a vote for an amendment to the laws concerning what information the FBI can gather using National Security Letters (NSLs). Despite the fact that the big push for this bill began a few weeks ago, and the fact that it had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Orlando shooting, cynical Senators including John McCain and Mitch McConnell pointed to the shootings in Orlando as a reason that this expansion of FBI surveillance powers was needed. Of course, the reality is that it wasn't needed, and the law is really there to paper over the fact that the FBI has already been widely abusing its NSL powers to get information it's not allowed to request.

After a vocal debate this morning, the measure (somewhat surprisingly) failed to pass, but by just two votes. It need 60 votes to move forward (it was a vote for "cloture" on debate, which requires 60 votes), and it only received 58. But McConnell already made it clear that the amendment will be reconsidered soon, which means he's likely going to be pushing strongly to get those two remaining votes.

In other words, this particular debate is far from over, and thus it's important to make sure your Senator knows not to support this. You can see the roll call on the votes here to see what your Senators voted. Somewhat surprisingly, neither of my Senators in California voted for it. Feinstein didn't vote or wasn't present and Boxer voted against. I'm guessing that Feinstein would likely vote for it in a revote, given her willingness to support greater surveillance, so it's possible that McConnell really only needs one more vote, unless people can convince some of the "Yea" voters to change their mind.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, doj, fbi, john mccain, mitch mcconnell, national security letters, nsls, politics, warrants

Seeing Opportunity, Congress Tries To Rush Through Its Plan To Legalize FBI Abuses Citing 'Orlando!'

from the let-no-crisis-go-unwasted dept

Just a few weeks ago, we wrote about the FBI pushing strongly for an update to the law that covers National Security Letters (NSLs) to cover up the fact that the FBI has been using them to get electronic communications records. The current law on NSLs doesn't cover that information, though the FBI insists that it's just a "typo" in the law, and still frequently asks for them in its NSLs, because NSL recipients often don't know the law themselves and will still turn over the info. Of course, it helps that the NSLs often come with gag orders. Reports going back a decade have shown that the FBI has a serious problem with abusing its NSL powers to get lots of information it's not supposed to have. And rather than do something to stop such abuses, the FBI's friends in Congress have, instead, been trying to legalize such abusive practices to allow the FBI to do even more.

And, in the spirit of "leave no crisis unexploited," Senator Mitch McConnell is pushing forward on the amendment put forth by Senators McCain and Cornyn to expand NSLs. And, cynically, they're citing the Orlando shootings as the reason why, despite the fact that this amendment was being pushed for before the shootings even occurred and the fact that this would have done absolutely nothing to stop the shootings.

“In the wake of the tragic massacre in Orlando, it is important our law enforcement have the tools they need to conduct counterterrorism investigations,” Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and sponsor of the amendment, said in a statement.

The FBI and others in law enforcement already have plenty of tools to do counterterrorism investigations (and, again, it's not even clear that the Orlando shooting was a terrorist activity in the first place). Nothing in this amendment would change how the FBI was investigating the attack. This is just McCain, McConnell and others exploiting the shooting to help the FBI further abuse its surveillance powers.

Filed Under: john mccain, mitch mcconnell, national security letters, nsls

FBI Pushing For Legislation That Will Legalize Its National Security Letter Abuses

from the fighting-terrorism-means-never-having-to-say-you're-sorry dept

One of the more interesting things to sneak out around the edges of the FBI's redaction bars in Yahoo's document dump of National Security Letters was the sheer amount of information the agency was demanding. The FBI -- using letters it writes and approves with no outside oversight -- wants all of the following in exchange for a piece of paper backed by nothing but the FBI's "national security" claims.

In preparing your response to this National Security Letter, you should determine whether your company maintains the following types of information which may be considered by you to be an electronic communications transactional record in accordance with Title 18 United States Code § 2709.

Subscriber name and related subscriber information

Account number(s)

Date the account opened or closed

Physical and or postal addresses associated with the account

Subscriber day/evening telephone numbers

Screen names or other on-line names associated with the account

All billing and method of payment related to the account including alternative billed numbers or calling cards

All e-mail addresses associated with the account to include any and all of the above information for any secondary or additional e-mail addresses and or user names identified by you as belonging to the targeted account in this letter

Internet Protocol (IP) addresses assigned to this account and related e-mail accounts

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) assigned to the account

Plain old telephone{s) (POTS), ISDN circuit(s), Voice over internet protocol (VOIP), Cable modem service, Internet cable service, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) asymmetrical/symmetrical relating to this account

The names of any and all upstream and providers facilitating this account's communications

This is odd because the FBI is not entitled to all of this information when using NSLs, as Gabe Rottman of CDT points out.

There are a few statutes that authorize the issuance of NSLs, but the most important—and the one with the greatest potential for abuse—is 18 U.S.C. § 2709, titled “Counterintelligence Access to Telephone Toll and Transactional Records.” As the name suggests, the authority was meant to be limited to phone records. It allows the FBI to issue NSLs to telecommunications companies to secure “the name, address, length of service, and local and long distance toll billing records of a person or entity” if the FBI certifies that they are relevant to a terrorism or espionage investigation. (The statute does mention the phrase “electronic communication transactional records,” but it still limits the types of covered records to name, address, length of service, and billing records–i.e., the equivalent of phone records.)

So, the FBI is asking for far more than it's allowed to get with an NSL. It's apparently hoping some NSL recipients won't know they're not required to turn over all of this information. Certainly, Yahoo knows, having battled the FBI (and the FISA court) over government demands for information. But the FBI issues thousands of these every year, and not every recipient is going to know what it does or doesn't have to turn over to the feds.

This perhaps explains the push to expand the FBI's NSL capabilities. Secret language in the Senate's secret intelligence bill looks to add email metadata and possibly browsing history to the list of records the FBI can acquire with NSLs. FBI Director James Comey has been stumping for this change, claiming the only thing standing between the FBI and records it always should have had access to in the first place is a typo.

On top of that, Sen. John Cornyn is attempting to "fix" the ECPA… by making even more of a mockery of the words behind the acronym: Electronic Communications Privacy Act. This is what Cornyn wants to give the FBI warrantless access to:

Name, physical address, email address, telephone number, instrument number, and other similar account identifying information.

Account number, login history, length of service (including start date), types of service, and means and sources of payment for service (including any card or bank account information).

Local and long distance toll billing records.

Internet Protocol (commonly known as ‘IP’) address or other network address, including any temporarily assigned IP or network address, communication addressing, routing, or transmission information, including any network address translation information (but excluding cell tower information), and session times and durations for an electronic communication.

As you can see, some of those records are already being requested by the FBI with NSLs, even though it has no legal basis to do so. It appears the FBI is pushing for codification of practices it already uses. That's the intelligence community way: it's better to ask for legislative fixes than permission. It's a forgiveness that pardons past behavior and permanently shields the agency from future legal challenges.

Filed Under: ecpa, ecpa reform, emails, fbi, national security letters, nsls