FBI ISP Letters May Have Violated Free Speech

Posted by kdawson on Sunday August 31, 2008 @12:13AM from the tell-me-and-zip-it dept.

Anti-Globalism sends in a Reuters account of an appeals court hearing in which an unnamed ISP is challenging the Patriot Act "National Security Letter" provision that allows the FBI to issue secret letters to ISPs and telecoms, demanding customer records. "A panel of federal appeals court judges pushed a US government lawyer on Wednesday to answer why FBI letters sent out to Internet service providers seeking information should remain secret. ... Between 2003 and 2006 nearly 200,000 national security letters were sent out. Of those about 97 percent received gag orders."

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There aren't. by Jane+Q.+Public · 2008-08-31 08:31 · Score: 3, Informative

There are not 200,000 sheep out there. There are only a few (at most a few hundred) ISPs which acted like sheep, 200,000 times!

There is a difference. These NSLs were not to individuals, they went to ISPs.