Justice Department Sues Telecom for Challenging National Security Letter

Source: Wired

Justice Department Sues Telecom for Challenging National Security Letter


Last year, when a telecommunications company received an ultra-secret demand letter from the FBI seeking information about a customer or customers, the telecom took an extraordinary step — it challenged the underlying authority of the FBI’s National Security Letter, as well as the legitimacy of the gag order that came with it.

Both challenges are allowed under a federal law that governs NSLs, a power greatly expanded under the Patriot Act that allows the government to get detailed information on Americans’ finances and communications without oversight from a judge. The FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs and been reprimanded for abusing them — though almost none of the requests have been challenged by the recipients.

After the telecom challenged its NSL last year, the Justice Department took its own extraordinary measure: It sued the company, arguing in court documents that the company was violating the law by challenging its authority....

...The government’s “Jabberwocky” argument – accusing the company of violating the law when it was actually complying with the law – appears in redacted court documents that were released on Wednesday by EFF with the government’s approval. Prior to their release, the organization provided them to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the case Tuesday night. The case is a significant challenge to the government and its efforts to obtain documents in a manner that the EFF says violates the First Amendment rights of free speech and association.



Read more: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/doj-sues-telecom-over-nsl/?utm_source=Contextly&utm_medium=RelatedLinks&utm_campaign=Interesting

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The relevant page at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where you can d/l the documents mentioned above:


https://www.eff.org/cases/re-matter-2011-national-security-letter