News release: "The FBI has withdrawn an unconstitutional national security letter (NSL) issued to the Internet Archive after a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). As the result of a settlement agreement, the FBI withdrew the NSL and agreed to the unsealing of the case, finally allowing the Archive's founder to speak out for the first time about his battle against the record demand...The NSL was served on the Archive -- a digital library recognized by the state of California -- and its attorneys in November of 2007. The letter asked for personal information about one of the Archive's users, including the individual's name, address, and any electronic communication transactional records pertaining to the user. Kahle, who is also a member of EFF's Board of Directors, decided to fight the NSL because it exceeded the FBI's limited authority to issue such demands to libraries."

• For the newly unsealed documents (still partially redacted)
  
• For more information about this case
  
• Related postings on National Security Letters

US Courts: "The number of intercepted wire, oral or electronic communications — also known as wiretaps — authorized by federal and state courts in 2007 was 20 percent higher than in 2006. Courts issued 2,208 such orders in 2007, compared to 1,839 in 2006, according to The 2007 Wiretap Report.

The complete report contains information on interceptions concluded between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2007. A summary of the authorized intercepts reported for calendar years 1997-2007 is available in Table 7."

EPIC: "According to the 2007 FISA report, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved 2,370 application to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches in the United States in 2007, up from 2,176 applications approved in 2006. For the first time, the report includes information regarding the total number of requests made by the Department of Justice with National Security Letter authority for information concerning U.S. persons. in 2006, the government made approximately 12,583 NSL requests for information concerning 4,790 U.S. persons. The 2007 NSL statistics are expected later this year."

Statement of Glenn A. Fine, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice before the House Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties concerning “The FBI’s Use of National Security Letters and Section 215 Orders for Business Records”, April 15, 2008.

Newsweek: Unintended Consequences - Spitzer got snagged by the fine print of the Patriot Act

Department of Justice Office of Inspector General: A Review of the FBI’s Use of National Security Letters: Assessment of Corrective Actions and Examination of NSL Usage in 2006, March 2008, Unclassified, (187 pages, PDF)

Department of Justice Office of Inspector General: A Review of the FBI’s Use of Section 215 Orders for Business Records in 2006, March 2008, Unclassified (99 pages, PDF)

Follow up to previous postings on TSA's Total Information Awareness surveillance program, this news release today from the ACLU: "...According to the new Wall Street Journal report [subscription req'd], the NSA was engaging in broad domestic spying operations that involve collecting and analyzing the personal information of Americans in ways that are "essentially the same" as TIA. The elements that reportedly make up the new spying encompass a variety of mass surveillance and data mining programs about which the ACLU has previously warned..."

Electronic Frontier Foundation: "Three powerful House Commerce Committee Chairmen strongly urged their colleagues Thursday to defer acting on requests for retroactive immunity and to demand more information from the White House and the telecommunications companies in the wake of disclosures by another whistleblower that the government apparently has been granted an open gateway to customer information and calls by a major telecommunications company."

• March 6, 2008 Dear Colleague letter, written by John Dingell, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce; Ed Markey, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet; and Bart Stupak, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations: "..Yesterday another whistleblower stepped forward with troubling charges that at least one major wireless telecommunications giant may have given a Congressional entity access to every communications coming through that company's infrastructure, including every e-mail, Internet use, document transmission, video and text message, as well as the ability to listen in on any phone call."


• Related postings on domestic surveillance program

DOJIG: Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Special Report, February 2008

Press release: "Late Tuesday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) won the speedy release of telecom lobbying records from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The agency was ordered to comply with a new December 10 deadline -- in time for the documents to play a role in the congressional debate over granting amnesty for telecommunications companies taking part in illegal electronic surveillance. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston vacates a hearing on the matter previously scheduled for Friday."

AP: "Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information...Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation...said Kerr ignores the distinction between sacrificing protection from an intrusive government and voluntarily disclosing information in exchange for a service."

Press release: "A federal judge today ruled on a preservation motion filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ordering that telecommunications companies must preserve any evidence of collaborating with the government in illegal spying on ordinary Americans. In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ordered the telecommunications companies to halt any routine destruction of documents or to arrange for the preservation of accurate copies. On December 14, each party must provide the court with confirmation that the court's order has been carried out. The court order did not require the government or the carriers to reveal whether or not they had any relevant evidence."

• Cultural Challenges in Cross Border Mediation, by Vikrant Singh Negi
• Persuading Judges in Writing: Tips for Lawyers (And how technology can help), by Troy Simpson
• Competitive Intelligence on a Shoestring, by Susan Armstrong and Sabrina I. Pacifici
• E-Discovery Update: Discovery of Employee-Owned Computer Equipment, by Conrad J. Jacoby
• The Government Domain: Journalists and Government Information: SLA-DGI/GODORT Joint Meeting, by Peggy Garvin
• FOIA Facts - FOIA Litigation: When A Loss Isn't Always A Loss, by Scott A. Hodes
• LLRX Book Review by Heather A. Phillips - Nation of Secrets and Presidential Secrecy and the Law
• CongressLine by GalleryWatch.com: Lobbying and Ethics Rules, by Paul Jenks
• After Hours: Recommended Reading, by Kathy Biehl
• Rule the Web, by Julia Wotipka
• Commentary: Congress Looks Again at FISA, by Beth Wellington

Press release, October 18, 2007: "Senator Jay Rockefeller and Senator Kit Bond, Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee...announced that the Senate Intelligence Committee passed legislation to modernize FISA. The bill, which passed by a strong bipartisan vote, will improve the recently enacted Protect America Act that aimed to fix collection problems related to foreign intelligence surveillance."

Press release: "Three telecommunications companies have provided responses to inquiries by the Committee on Energy and Commerce about their involvement with the National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping program. On October 2, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-MI), Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, sent letters to AT&T, Verizon and Qwest, requesting that the telecommunications companies provide details on the reported efforts by government agencies to obtain information about customers’ telephone and Internet use."

Press release: "Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) and Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) introduced The Responsible Electronic Surveillance that is Overseen, Reviewed, and Effective Act of 2007 – the RESTORE Act,in an effort to address concerns about civil liberty protections in the hastily-enacted Protect America Act that was signed into law in early August. The RESTORE ACT restores court oversight of intelligence gathering by requiring that electronic surveillance programs be approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, mandating that FISA warrants be obtained when the government wants to undertake surveillance of persons in the US, and authorizing continued oversight of programs by the Court, Congress, and independent auditors."

EFF: "Today, Judge Ann Aiken of the Oregon Federal District Court ruled that two provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), "50 U.S.C. §§ 1804 and 1823, as amended by the Patriot Act, are unconstitutional because they violate the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution."

House Judiciary Committee Hearing on Warrantless Surveillance and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: The Role of Checks and Balances in Protecting Americans’ Privacy Rights (Part II). Statements of Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence and Kenneth Wainstein, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, United States Department of Justice.

ACLU press release: "A federal court today struck down the amended Patriot Act's National Security Letter (NSL) provision. The law has permitted the FBI to issue NSLs demanding private information about people within the United States without court approval, and to gag those who receive NSLs from discussing them. The court found that the gag power was unconstitutional and that because the statute prevented courts from engaging in meaningful judicial review of gags, it violated the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers."

Remarks of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales Announcing His Resignation, Washington, DC - August 27, 2007

The Wall Street Journal today reported that House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff stating the intention to conduct careful oversight over the fall 2007 launch of the National Applications Office (NAO). This program's use of "spy satellites for domestic homeland security and law enforcement purposes" has raised civil liberties and privacy issues.

Press release: "DoD’s Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) will close the TALON Reporting System effective Sept. 17, 2007, and maintain a record copy of the collected data in accordance with intelligence oversight requirements. To ensure there is a mechanism in place to document and assess potential threats to DoD resources, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas’ Security Affairs will propose a system to streamline such threat reporting and better meet the Defense department’s needs."

Follow up to August 20, 2007 posting, White House Fails to Comply With Subpoenas on Domestic Surveillance Program - additional related government documents and news:

Follow up to previous posting on the government's domestic surveillance program, today's Statement of Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee, On The Bush Administration’s Failure To Comply With Subpoenas For Warrantless Wiretapping Documents, August 20, 2007: "Today was the deadline for the Administration to comply with the Judiciary Committee’s subpoenas for documents related to the legal justifications for and President’s authorization of the warrantless wiretapping program. The Administration failed to adequately comply, despite our granting an extension of more than a month past the original return date. The Administration has produced no documents, no adequate basis for noncompliance, no privilege claims, and no complete privilege log."

Related news and government documents:

WSJ: "The U.S.'s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation's vast network of spy satellites in the U.S. The decision, made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the U.S.'s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials. The move was authorized in a May 25 memo sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking his department to facilitate access to the spy network on behalf of civilian agencies and law enforcement."

Follow-up to August 6, 2007 posting - Questions and Answers on the Protect America Act of 2007 - today's related press release on the bill President Bush signed into law on August 5, 2007: "U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) yesterday asked for and received a letter from Admiral Mike McConnell [text of which is included in this release], Director of National Intelligence, detailing assurances he made to Senators on Friday evening that temporary modifications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will not infringe on the rights of Americans."

Follow-up to August 5, 2007 posting - Bill to Amend Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Ready for President's Signature - today's FAQ: How far does the new wiretap law go? by Declan McCullagh - "Over strong objections from civil liberties groups and many Democrats, legislators voted over the weekend to temporarily rewrite a 1978 wiretapping law that the Bush administration claimed was hindering antiterrorism investigations."

Related government documents:

Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act (as required by Section 1001(3) of Public Law 107-56), Special Report, August 3, 2007- Office of the Inspector General [PDF or HTML]

Bill Moyers Journal, July 13, 2007: "Bill Moyers gets perspective on the role of impeachment in American political life from Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who wrote the first article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and THE NATION's John Nichols, author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT."
Related links:

Press release: "The United States has faced an unprecedented rise in government secrecy over the last six years, according to a report released today by OpenTheGovernment.org and People For the American Way Foundation. Government Secrecy: Decisions Without Democracy 2007 (52 pages, PDF) documents how executive power has dramatically expanded while executive accountability has diminished."

Follow up to previous postings on domestic surveillance programs, news today that 6th Circuit found none of the plaintiff's had standing against the NSA with regard to the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). See the ACLU press release: "In a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals today dismissed a legal challenge to the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. The challenge was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of prominent journalists, scholars, attorneys and national nonprofit organizations who say that the unchecked surveillance program is disrupting their ability to communicate effectively with sources and clients."

Follow up to previous postings on Connecticut librarians and FBI NSL gag order, via Wired Blog, Librarians Describe Life Under An FBI Gag Order: "Two Connecticut librarians on Sunday [at the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC] described what it was like to be slapped with an FBI national security letter and accompanying gag order."

WashingtonPost.com: "Over the past six years, Cheney has shaped his times as no vice president has before. This...four-part series...explores his methods and impact, drawing on interviews with more than 200 men and women who worked for, with or in opposition to Cheney's office. Many of those interviewed recounted events that have not been made public until now, sharing notes,e-mails, personal calendars and other records of their interaction with Cheney and his senior staff. The vice president declined to be interviewed."

Press release: "The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), which created the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (Board), requires that "[n]ot less frequently than annually, the Board shall prepare a report to Congress, unclassified to the greatest extent possible...on the Board's major activities during the preceding period." This report discusses the Board’s activities from its first meeting on March 14, 2006, at which the Members were sworn in and an Executive Director was appointed, through March 1, 2007. This report contains no classified information."

"Following 9/11, the U.S. government adopted some controversial new tactics intended to prevent future terrorist attacks, including warrantless eavesdropping on Americans' phone calls, secret demands for records under the Patriot Act, and FBI sting operations against people thought to be potential terrorists. The Bush Administration contends these tactics have helped to save American lives, but critics say they have severely damaged our individual liberties. Three stories illustrate the issues of security and liberty: In a Public Library / At the National Security Agency / An FBI sting operation. SECURITY VERSUS LIBERTY explores this urgent national debate by talking with leading critics and advocates of the new policies, and telling the stories of people whose lives have been directly affected. If the war against terror is truly the long struggle our leaders say it will be, then so too will be the struggle to set the right balance between security and liberty. This program provides valuable information that will help Americans come to grips with the difficult choices we face."

Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights, hearing - Responding to The Inspector General's Findings of Improper Use of National Security Letters by the FBI, April 11, 2007.

Via American Library Association Washington Office Newsline:

"George Christian, Executive Director of the Library Connection and former plaintiff in John Doe v. Gonzales, testified today (April 11, 2007) before a Senate Subcommittee on the harmful effects of receiving a National Security Letter (NSL), a component of the USA PATRIOT Act, from the FBI. Library Connection is a non-profit cooperative of 27 libraries in Connecticut. In 2005, the group received an NSL from the FBI, along with its accompanying perpetual gag order, demanding library records...Library Connection challenged the constitutionality of the NSL and its perpetual gag and eventually the FBI withdrew its appeal to keep their identities hidden after Federal District Court Judge Janet C. Hall declared the gag order unconstitutional. Christian, spoke on behalf of himself and three others...“Ours is a cautionary story that we hope will provoke serious thought. Though our gag order was lifted, several hundred thousand other recipients of National Security Letters must carry the secret of their experience with NSLs to their graves,” Christian remarked in his opening statement and further added, “When the USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law, our Connecticut library community, like the American Library Association and many other librarians, were concerned about the lack of judicial oversight as well as the secrecy associated with a number of the Act’s provisions and the NSLs in particular.” Christian asked Congress “to take special note of the uses and abuses of NSLs, in libraries and bookstores and other places where higher First Amendment standards should be considered,” and “to reconsider parts of the USA PATRIOT Act and in particular, the NSL powers that can needlessly subject innocent people to fishing expeditions of their personal information with no judicial review. Because of the gag order, you, our Senators and elected representatives and the American public, are denied access to the stories and information about these abuses. This is information you need to conduct oversight, work for appropriate changes to current law and seek to protect our constitutional rights.”

Politicizing National Security, by Aziz Huq, April 4, 2007: "Aziz Huq directs the Liberty and National Security Project at the Brennan Center for Justice. He is co-author of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in Times of Terror, and recipient of a 2006 Carnegie Scholars Fellowship." Mr. Huq focuses on three recent issues to highlight his thesis: the firings of U.S. Attorneys, the misuse of National Security Letters, and DOJ OIG Fine's recent audit of terrorism prosecutions.

Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, March 28, 2007

Taking steps to further improve our privacy practices: Posted by Peter Fleischer, Privacy Counsel-Europe, and Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel: "When you search on Google, we collect information about your search, such as the query itself, IP addresses and cookie details. Previously, we kept this data for as long as it was useful. Today we're pleased to report a change in our privacy policy: Unless we're legally required to retain log data for longer, we will anonymize our server logs after a limited period of time. When we implement this policy change in the coming months, we will continue to keep server log data (so that we can improve Google's services and protect them from security and other abuses)—but will make this data much more anonymous, so that it can no longer be identified with individual users, after 18-24 months...Just as we continuously work to improve our products, we also work toward having the best privacy practices for our users. This includes designing privacy protections into our products (like Google Talk's “off the record” feature or Google Desktop’s “pause” and “lock search” controls). This also means providing clear, easy to understand privacy policies that help you make informed decisions about using our services. After talking with leading privacy stakeholders in Europe and the U.S., we're pleased to be taking this important step toward protecting your privacy. By anonymizing our server logs after 18-24 months, we think we’re striking the right balance between two goals: continuing to improve Google’s services for you, while providing more transparency and certainty about our retention practices. In the future, it's possible that data retention laws will obligate us to retain logs for longer periods. Of course, you can always choose to have us retain this data for more personalized services like Search History. But that's up to you. Our engineers are already busy working out the technical details, and we hope to implement this new data policy over the coming months (and within a year's time). We’ll communicate more as we work out these details, but for now, we wanted you to know that we’re working on this additional step to strengthen your privacy. If you want to know more, read the log retention FAQ (PDF)."

Press release: "U.S. Senate legislation to implement unfinished recommendations of the 9/11 commission includes a bipartisan amendment to declassify the Executive Summary of the CIA Inspector General’s Report on 9/11. The CIA report is the only major 9/11 government review that has not been made public, a fact that the Vice Chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Kit Bond (R-MO) and U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), a senior member of the Intelligence Committee, have spent more than a year working to correct."

Follow-up to March 8, 2007 posting, DOJ OIG Report Documents FBI Underreporting Use of National Security Letter, this from the ACLU: "Claims that the FBI’s reported Patriot Act abuses were the "unintentional" result of outmoded computer systems and human error are not credible, the American Civil Liberties Union said today, citing evidence that agents contracted with phone companies to obtain customer records and later sought to cover up the illegal requests."

The Blotter (ABC News): "The FBI repeatedly failed to follow the strict guidelines of the Patriot Act when its agents took advantage of a new provision allowing the FBI to obtain phone and financial records without a court order, according to a report to be made public Friday by the Justice Department's Inspector General."

"This rule amends part 0 of title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations to reflect the establishment of the National Security Division at the Department of Justice. The National Security Division was created by section 506 of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 ("the Act"). This rule, which sets forth the Division's organization, mission and functions, amends the Code of Federal Regulations in order to conform the Department's regulations to the Act and to reflect accurately the Department's internal management structure." [Federal Register: March 7, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 44)][Rules and Regulations][Page 10064-10070]

News.com: "The Bush administration has accelerated its Internet surveillance push by proposing that Web sites must keep records of who uploads photographs or videos in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate, CNET News.com has learned. That proposal surfaced Wednesday in a private meeting during which U.S. Department of Justice officials, including Assistant Attorney General Rachel Brand, tried to convince industry representatives such as AOL and Comcast that data retention would be valuable in investigating terrorism...and other crimes...At the very least, the companies would be required to keep logs for police of which customer is assigned a specific Internet address. Only universities and libraries would be excluded, one participant said. "There's a PR concern with including the libraries, so we're not going to include them," the participant quoted the Justice Department as saying. "We know we're going to get a pushback, so we're not going to do that."

Department of Justice OIG Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Special Report, March 2007: "Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Patriot Act), Public Law 107-56, directs the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ or Department) to undertake a series of actions related to claims of civil rights or civil liberties violations allegedly committed by DOJ employees. It also requires the OIG to provide semiannual reports to Congress on the implementation of the OIG’s responsibilities under Section 1001. This report – the tenth since enactment of the legislation in October 2001 – summarizes the OIG’s Section 1001-related activities from July 1, 2006, through December 31, 2006."

Press release: "The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee [February 8, 2008] approved a measure sponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Arlen Specter, Patrick Leahy, and Chuck Schumer that would prevent the circumvention of the Senate's constitutional prerogative to confirm U.S. Attorneys. Under a provision inserted without notice into the USA Patriot Act reauthorization last year, the law was changed so that if a vacancy arises, the Attorney General may appoint a replacement for an indefinite period of time – thus completely avoiding the Senate confirmation process. The legislation approved by the Judiciary Committee...would restore the process in place before 2006. It would allow the Attorney General to appoint interim U.S. Attorney for 120 days. If after that time the President has not sent up a nominee to the Senate and had that nominee confirmed, then the authority to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney would fall to the district court. This was the law from 1986 to 2006. It was proposed by Reagan Administration and authored by Senator Strom Thurmond."

Follow up to January 7, 2007 posting, Presidential Signing Statement for Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act Includes Power to Open Mail, see this press release today: "The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for National Security Studies today filed three Freedom of Information Act requests seeking the immediate release of records related to President Bush's asserted authority to search Americans’ mail without a warrant. The president claimed this unprecedented authority in a "signing statement" attached to a statute that expressly prohibits opening First Class mail without a warrant."

Press release: President's Statement on H.R. 6407, the "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act", December 20, 2006

Follow-up to a November 7, 2006 posting, Court Grants Appeal in AT&T Spying Case, today, via Wired, "A federal judge in San Francisco declined to decide today whether to unseal documents at the heart of a lawsuit against AT&T for its alleged participation in a warrantless government wiretapping program aimed at Americans' overseas emails and phone calls...Though Wired News independently acquired and published portions of the documents under seal in May, Berenson said the "horse was not out of the barn" and that there were sensitive technical details under seal in documents that total about 120 pages."

The following are available via FAS:

Press release: "Following requests for an investigation of the National Security Agency’s (NSA) warrantless surveillance program from Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), and other House members, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Glenn A. Fine today informed Lofgren and Hinchey that his office has opened a program review of the agency's involvement with the program. Lofgren and Hinchey have led the call for nearly a year for DOJ officials to examine the NSA warrantless surveillance program with Lofgren pushing for Fine to investigate the matter and Hinchey pursuing a probe through the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR)."

Related resources:

Follow-up to previous postings on the SWIFT online financial cooperative network, this November 23, 2006 corporate press release:

September 13, 2006

By Mr. SPECTER, from the Committee on the Judiciary, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute, S. 2453: A bill to establish procedures for the review of electronic surveillance programs.

By Mr. SPECTER, from the Committee on the Judiciary, without amendment: S. 2455. A bill to provide in statute for the conduct of electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists for the purposes of protecting the American people, the Nation, and its interests from terrorist attack while ensuring that the civil liberties of United States citizens are safeguarded, and for other purposes.

By Mr. SPECTER, from the Committee on the Judiciary, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute: S. 3001. A bill to ensure that all electronic surveillance of United States persons for foreign intelligence purposes is conducted pursuant to individualized court-issued orders, to streamline the procedures of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and for other purposes.

Special Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act, August 2006 [HTML and PDF]

Press release: "The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union announced today that they have returned to court to challenge the constitutionality of the reauthorized Patriot Act's National Security Letter (NSL) provision. The provision permits the FBI to prohibit anyone who receives an NSL from disclosing that the FBI has sought or obtained information from them."

Press release: "A federal judge today denied the government's motion to dismiss the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF's) case against AT&T for collaborating with the NSA in illegal spying of millions of ordinary Americans. This allows the case to go forward in the
courts."

USAToday.com reports that up to eight data mining programs have been deployed by intelligence agencies to mine financial and personal records in an effort to identify potential terrorist activities.

Follow-up to recents postings on FISA that include House Intelligence Hearing on Modernizing FISA and Draft Agreement With White House on Domestic Surveillance Oversight, see this new article on the subject by Edward Lazarus: Why The "Compromise" Foreign Surveillance Wiretap Legislation Pending in Congress Is No Compromise: The Bill, and Senator Specter's Strange Reversal on the Issue

House Intelligence to Hold Open Hearing on Modernizing FISA, July 19, 2006.

Follow-up to postings on terrorist financing programs, the House Committee on Financial Services hearing entitled "The Terror Finance Tracking Program," Tuesday, July 11, 2006.

USAToday.com follow's up on news about the FBI dropping demands for Connecticut library patron records with this article on the expansive post 9/11 use of National Security Letters to obtain private data from a range of organizations.

A resolution to the case involving Connecticut librarians and an FBI NSL gag order regarding patron records - today the ACLU announced the FBI has dropped the case.

Following up on Domestic Call Records Mined for Expansive Pentagon Database Program, today's passage by the House Judiciary Committee, voice vote, on H.Res. 819, "Requesting the President and directing the Attorney General to submit to the House of Representatives all documents in the possession of the President and the Attorney General relating to requests made by the National Security Agency and other Federal agencies to telephone service providers requesting access to telephone communications records of persons in the United States and communications originating and terminating within the United States without a warrant".

Related links and news:

Arguments by the DOJ (Anthony J. Coppolino) and the ACLU were heard today in U.S. District Court - Eastern District of Michigan. The government maintains that the domestic surveillance program is legal.

CDT: "A federal appeals court today ruled 2-1 that telephone regulators and the FBI can control the design of Internet services in order to make government wiretapping easier. The decision (29 pages, PDF), which is damaging both to civil liberties and technology innovation, came in a case in which CDT joined with a coalition of universities, libraries, public interest groups and Internet companies to oppose an August 2005 ruling by the Federal Communications Commission. In that ruling, the FCC extended to the Internet the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), a law Congress intended to apply only to the telephone network."

Follow-up to postings on the government phone surveillance program, USAToday.com reported that Senate Judicary Chair Arlen Specter cancelled hearings that would have scrutinized the extent to which phone companies provided customer records to the NSA.

Related Congressional news:

BusinessWeek.com Keeping an Eye on the Snoops: With government eavesdropping getting more aggressive, privacy safeguards need to be beefed up.

Following up on previous postings about Connecticut librarians gagged by the FBI's use of the National Security Letter provision of the Patriot Act, news from an ACLU press conference on the identity of the librarians and their respective statements as follows:

Justice Department Probe Foiled, by Shane Harris and Murray Waas, National Journal: "An internal Justice Department inquiry into whether department officials -- including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft -- acted properly in approving and overseeing the Bush administration's domestic eavesdropping program was stymied because investigators were denied security clearances to do their work. The investigators, however, were only seeking information and documents relating to the National Security Agency's surveillance program that were already in the Justice Department's possession, two senior government officials said in interviews."

Related legal documents, commentary, opinion and postings:

Press release, May 24, 2006: "U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) today introduced legislation (22 pages, PDF) that would reaffirm that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is the exclusive means by which our government can conduct electronic surveillance of U.S. persons on U.S. soil for foreign intelligence purposes."

CRS Report, Government Access to Phone Calling Activity and Related Records: Legal Authorities, May 17, 2006 (19 pages, PDF)

May 17, 2006: Report on the Progress of the DNI in Implementing the "Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004" (12 pages, PDF)

Senate Intelligence Committee Open Hearing: Confirmation Hearing of General Michael V. Hayden to be the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, May 18, 2006.

LA Times: The Fine Art of Legislation Appellation - "If you want your bill to be noticed, a snappy acronym beats S. 1955 any old time."

Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing on FBI Oversight, May 2, 2006.

Follow-up to April 28, 2006 posting, FBI Used NSLs to Collect Info on Thousands of Americans, the following related documents from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts:

Boston Globe: Bush challenges hundreds of laws:"President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he