Big Brother Watch: The FBI's Secret Scrutiny of Ordinary Americans

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

Worth the read.

Via The Washington Post.

[snip]

The FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer with a document marked for delivery by hand. On Matianuk Avenue, 
across from the tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George Christian the letter, which warned 
him to tell no one, ever, what it said.

Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all subscriber information, 
billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. 
Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures 
his system for privacy. But the vendors of the software he operates said their databases can reveal the Web sites that 
visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and the books they borrow

Christian refused to hand over those records, and his employer, Library Connection Inc., filed suit for the right to 
protest the FBI demand in public. The Washington Post established their identities -- still under seal in the U.S. 
Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit -- by comparing unsealed portions of the file with public records and information 
gleaned from people who had no knowledge of the FBI demand.

The Connecticut case affords a rare glimpse of an exponentially growing practice of domestic surveillance under the USA 
Patriot Act, which marked its fourth anniversary on Oct. 26. "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.

[snip]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/05/AR2005110501366.html

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg () netzero net or fergdawg () sbcglobal net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


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