National Security Letters: Proposed Amendments in the 111th Congress
Abstract
Five federal statutes authorize various intelligence agencies to demand, through National Security Letters (NSLs), certain customer information from communications providers, financial institutions, and consumer credit reporting agencies, under the Right to Financial Privacy Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the National Security Act, and Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The USA PATRIOT Act expanded NSL authority. Later reports of the Department of Justice Inspector General indicated that (1) the FBI considered the expanded authority very useful; (2) after expansion the number of NSLs requests increased dramatically; (3) the number of requests relating to Americans increased substantially; and (4) FBI use of NSL authority had sometimes failed to comply with statutory, Attorney General, or FBI policies. Originally, the NSL statutes authorized nondisclosure requirements prohibiting recipients from disclosing receipt or the content of the NSL to anyone, ever. They now permit judicial review of these secrecy provisions. As understood by the courts, recipients may request the issuing agency to seek and justify to the court the continued binding effect of any secrecy requirement. Several USA PATRIOT Act provisions are scheduled to expire on December 31, 2009. The NSL statutory provisions are not among them. Nevertheless, several bills have been introduced which would amend and in some cases repeal NSL authority. The bills include (1) the National Security Letter Reform Act of 2009 (H.R. 1800), introduced by Representative Nadler; (2) the USA PATRIOT Amendments Act of 2009 (H.R. 3845), introduced by Representative Conyers and reported out by the House Judiciary Committee ( H.Rept. 111-382, Pt.1); (3) the Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools in Counterterrorism Efforts Act of 2009 (JUSTICE Act)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 21, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA512693
Entities
People
- Charles Doyle
Organizations
- Library of Congress