EFF Urges Court to Rule National Security Letters Unconstitutional

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) along with the National Security Archive urged a federal appeals court Wednesday to strike down the National Security Letter (NSL) provision of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The federal surveillance law, as expanded by the PATRIOT Act, allows the FBI to use NSLs to get private records about people's communications without any court approval, as long as it claims the information could be relevant to a terrorism or espionage investigation. The FBI also has broad discretion to place recipients of NSLs under indefinite gag orders, barring them from saying anything about the demands. Read more...

Posted by Editor at March 20, 2008 12:15 PM