At times, complaints about the Patriot Act can sound vaguely hysterical. Critics go so far as to suggest that the law empowers the FBI to obtain secret information about you — including phone calls, internet visits, even credit ratings — whether you’re suspected of wrongdoing or not. The probing of your personal information can be kept secret, literally forever. This information can be collected without the consent, or even knowledge, of a judge. And these invasions of personal privacy happen routinely, tens of thousands of times a year in the post-9/11 era. It’s a scenario that might make George Orwell blush.
But this isn’t the panic-stricken rant of a paranoid civil libertarian; it’s an accurate description of a power given to the government through the Patriot Act.
“National security letters,” created in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, originated as narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.
The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters — one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people — are extending the bureau’s reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.
Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot.
The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks — and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for “state, local and tribal” governments and for “appropriate private sector entities,” which are not defined.
The story is a civil liberties nightmare — and it’s all true.
While the Bush White House continues to stand by the Patriot Act and resist any changes, some senators — from both parties — are growing less and less comfortable with the law.
“It appears to me that this is, if not abused, being close to abused,” said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), who is a member of the Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, agreed, saying the government’s expanded power highlights the risks of balancing national security against individual rights. “It does point up how dangerous this can be,” said Hagel, who appeared with Biden on ABC’s “This Week.” […]
Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), both members of the Judiciary Committee, said the expanded use of security letters was a “clear concern” and that information gathered on citizens should be destroyed if it does not lead to a criminal charge.
Coburn said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he “certainly will” take steps to ensure that the documents are destroyed immediately.
If you haven’t already, please read the whole WaPo article on the “national security letters.” It’s tempting to believe it’s some kind of exaggeration about government power, but, unfortunately, it’s an accurate report on the Patriot Act effectively licensing the FBI to spy on Americans, whether they’re suspected of wrongdoing or not, without oversight. Really.