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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."
Better keep on your toes...
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
While I agree that citizens' privacy needs to be protected, obviously there is a much greater focus on terrorism since the September 11 attacks, and the US has engaged in conflicts in two countries. It seems only natural that more activities of a secret nature would be taking place, now that we have clearly been made aware that there are people out there that actually would launch an attack on the United States, instead of substance-free posturing.
However, since we cannot really know what the secret requests were for, we cannot simply acquiesce to the potential eroding of our civil liberties. I just think that secrecy (at least not necessarily) == (evil|bigbrother|invasionofprivacy), which is the inevitable conclusion some here will reach.