FBI Ordered to Release National Security Letters

The US District Court for the District of Colombia Friday ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to release approximately 100,000 pages of documents that detail the FBI's use of national security letters (NSL). The request was made pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).^[1] The order set a July 5 deadline for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI to begin releasing documents to the EFF, and ordered the DOJ and FBI to release an additional 2500 pages of documents every 30 days thereafter.^[2]

The EFF submitted its FOIA request on March 12, but sued the FBI in April after the FBI's failure to respond.^[3] The EFF is seeking to conduct an independent investigation of the FBI's improper use of NSLs, revealed in March by a DOJ review.^[4] A federal judge ordered speedy processing for public release of records detailing the FBI's use and abuse of its power to obtain Americans' personal data in terror and spy investigations.^[5]

The decision to release the documents came Friday by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, who set a July 5 deadline for documents about FBI national security letters to be handed over by the Justice Department to a San Francisco-based technology-rights group.^[6]

The FBI issues tens of thousands of national security letters annually, including an estimated 19,000 in 2005 alone, seeking 47,000 records.^[7] The majority of the abuses uncovered by FBI auditors appear to have been made by companies that gave more information than investigators sought, but the Justice Department inspector general also found instances where FBI agents violated the law and rules governing such requests.^[8]

Under the Patriot Act, national security letters give the FBI authority to bypass court approval to demand that telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses produce personal records about their customers or subscribers.^[9]

On Wednesday, the FBI published new draft guidelines concerning the use of NSLs, which require FBI agents to identify the specific information being requested and justify its necessity pursuant to an investigation.^[10] The guidelines are intended to correct privacy violations which were reported to be more numerous than previously reported by the DOJ's March report.

---

^[1] Michael Sung, Federal court orders FBI to release national security letter documents, The Jurist, June 16, 2007, available at http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2007/06/federal-court-orders-fbi-to-release.php (last visited June 19, 2007).
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Lara Jakes Jordan, Judge Hastens Release of Terror Records, Associated Press Newswire, June 15, 2007, available at available at LEXIS, News Library, Wire News Services.
^[6] Id.
^[7] Id.
^[8] Id.
^[9] Id.
^[10] Sung, supra note 1.