FBI Releases Secret Subpoena Information

gollum123 writes to mention a CNN article, reporting on an FBI information release. The number of secret subpoenas the Bureau filed last year reached 3,501. These documents allowed access to credit card records, bank statements, telephone records, and internet access logs for thousands of legal citizens without asking for a court's permission. From the article: "The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the same panel that signs off on applications for business records warrants, also approved 2,072 special warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies. The record number is more than twice as many as were issued in 2000, the last full year before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001."

Comments

One of America's Leading Historians said

[Anonymous Coward]

it, not Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone just published it.

Link : One of America's leading historians assesses George W. Bush

Re:credit card history

[TheRaven64]

It could affect his chance at getting security clearance if he files his sexual orientation as heterosexual. I don't know about the US, but in the UK, you can get security clearance if you are gay and admit it, but if you claim not to be and their background check indicates that you are then it can be denied. This has nothing at all to do with prejudice or discrimination, it comes down to the simple fact that if there is anything in your private life that you could be blackmailed about then you are a potential security risk.

Having said that, I suspect that visiting a single gay bar probably would not flag him as a closet homosexual. After all, who hasn't been to the odd gay bar or two? If he visited the same gay bar every week or two though, then that might raise some red flags (assuming that the NSA has a database of all drinking establishments with a 'sexual orientation of majority of patrons' field. If they do, then they could probably make a fair amount selling it in guidebook form...)

Re:How will this affect me?

[PPGMD]

I claim BS, I have read the story of a number of pilots that flew through TFRs, everything is correct up until the time factored in, then it starts to smell. Most pilots violating a TFR are either immediately intercepted or if they don't have aircraft available in the air tracked via ATC and arrested by cops at the local airport, none of the cases I have read about in pilot rags are done more then 10 minutes after the pilot transits TFR airspace.

Second most ISPs don't keep logs on your current web traffic, it's simply too much data to keep, most ISPs don't keep router logs more then a week (if they keep them at all, which themselves are useless and can takes hours to match them with DHCP logs and then with websites), DHCP logs are kept for a greater amount of time. Second the FBI doesn't care if you visit the normal anti-GWB websites, they might care if you visited it at the same time as going to Jihad Jim's bomb making HOWTO.

Also none of the pilots have been arrested because violating a TFR is not a crime, it's a regulatory action between the pilot and the FAA. The passengers would not have been effected one bit, since they did nothing wrong.