In this morning’s Washington Post, Barton Gellman uncovers the insidious nature of the cover of surveillance under which you and I have been blanketed:
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.
…
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.
The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters — one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people — are extending the bureau’s reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.
Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot.
Great. With all the problems this country has, the government can find time and money to fritter away bothering simple protesters, suspicious immigrants, and ordinary people. New Orleans has dropped off the radar now, but it’s still a complete mess down there, with shoddy levee work, corruption, incompetance and insurance company shenanigans. It’s so obvious that the government doesn’t care about ordinary citizens except as possible terrorists or tax payers trying to cheat them out of there money. What happened to us? There’s no “good will” any longer, neither domestically, nor in our foreign policy. It’s becoming less and less like America and more and more like Stalinist Russia. So now we have to watch what we say, which web-sites we view, who we talk to and associate with, or we may find ourselves in a Romanian prison!?
I’ve been following this story for a few months now. The Post has nothing new except the identity of the plaintiffs. Which is interesting to know, I suppose, but doesn’t significantly add to the story.
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IO Error,
Yes, we’ve been following the story too. BUT you’re misreading the Washington Post article if you think all they’ve done is add a name of a plaintiff. Gellman reports new information regarding the scale of the connection, connects recent developments such as Bush’s new executive orders to the overall story, and identifies upcoming political constitutive moments when our representatives will choose between this path and a better, alternative future. So no, I don’t agree with you that Gellman’s report is nothing new.