Plaintiff who challenged FBI's national security letters reveals concerns

[cory777]

Source: Washington Post

For six years, Nicholas Merrill has lived in a surreal world of half-truths, where he could not tell even his fiancee, his closest friends or his mother that he is "John Doe" -- the man who filed the first-ever court challenge to the FBI's ability to obtain personal data on Americans without judicial approval.

Friends would mention the case when it was in the news and the normally outspoken Merrill would change the subject.

He would turn up at the federal courthouse to hear the arguments, and in an out-of-body moment he would realize that no one knew he was the plaintiff challenging the FBI's authority to issue "national security letters," as they are known, and its ability to impose a gag on the recipient.

Now, following the partial lifting of his gag order 11 days ago as a result of an FBI settlement, Merrill can speak openly for the first time about the experience, although he cannot disclose the full scope of the data demanded.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/09/AR2010080906252.html?wprss=rss_nation

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Breaking Activist News http://activistnews.blogspot.com

[katandmoon]

1. And Obama wants to make it even easier for the FBI to invade our privacy

[sandnsea]

2. The letters could request internet activity

It wouldn't make getting information from communications providers any easier, it's already about as easy as it can be. The recent request is to include internet activity in addition to email addresses, phone calls, etc.

We need to focus on these letters instead of getting sidetracked with more Obama hysteria.

Feingold and Durbin were writing a new Patriot Act last year. Why don't we see what happened to that and see if we can't push that agenda forward.

[TheMadMonk]

4. Not Obama hysteria. But nice of you to conflate it that way so all the Obamaphiles...

...will now dismiss this matter.

This is yet another symptom of a disease that has been incubating for decades.

Even by the time of McCarthy this disease was well advanced. ANYTHING! Anything whatsoever which threatened to undermine profits was (and is) to be fought by any and all means whatsoever, with little to no regard for legality or common morality.


Lives are nothing. The dollar is everything.


Until America gets over that the world is in for a very rocky ride.

[sandnsea]

7. I'd like to focus on the National Security Letters

and the new Patriot Act Feingold and Durbin are writing.

How is that dismissing the matter??

But thanks so much for *your* contribution of hysteria to once again prove the point.

[No Elephants]

8. Reply #1 is a brief, accurate, factual statement. Implying it was hysteria is ludicrous

[boppers]

3. There's an email loophole/irregularity

Get this: if you fax blast out death threats to 20 companies, no warrant is required to see who you sent those messages to. Text blast it to 30 phones, same thing, no warrant. Send it via FedEx, no warrant.

Do the very same thing with email, however, and they have no legal way to require that information be divulged, short of a full search warrant hearing. So, while Obama's admin may be making it "easier", that's because everything else was already so easy, but email wasn't part of the original record kinds specified... which is a different discussion that *also* needs to be had, should any of this be easy?

[sandnsea]

6. Only through a National Security Letter

I think those things are bullshit. I wish we'd focus on getting warrants put back in place again.

[earcandle]

5. Be able to be transparent, then fight for your rights of privacy. Then you embrace both sides.