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Revealed: What Info the FBI Can Collect With a National Security Letter
An anonymous reader writes with this lead from Help Net Security's story on a topic we've touched on here many times: the broad powers arrogated by the Federal government in the form of National Security Letters: On Monday, after winning an eleven-year legal battle, Nicholas Merrill can finally tell the public how the FBI has secretly construed its authority to issue National Security Letters (NSLs) to permit collection of vast amounts of private information on US citizens without a search warrant or any showing of probable cause. The PATRIOT Act vastly expanded the domestic reach of the NSL program, which allows the FBI to compel disclosure of information from online companies and forbid recipients from disclosing they have received an NSL. The FBI has refused to detail publicly the kinds of private data it believes it can obtain with an NSL.
A key sentence from the same story: "Merrill is now able to reveal that the FBI believes it can force online companies to turn over the following information simply by sending an NSL demanding it: an individual’s complete web browsing history; the IP addresses of everyone a person has corresponded with; and records of all online purchases." Reader Advocatus Diaboli adds this, from The Intercept: One of the most striking revelations, Merrill said during a press teleconference, was that the FBI was requesting detailed cell site location information — cellphone tracking records — under the heading of "radius log" information. Traditionally, radius log refers to a user's attempts to connect to a server or a DSL line — a sort of anachronism given the progress of technology. "The notion that the government can collect cellphone location information — to turn your cellphone into a tracking device, just by signing a letter — is extremely troubling," Merrill said.
What's troubling is that people allow it to happen. The polls all say that they want it. The reelection rates confirm it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I see no surprises. Everything that they have revealed has been known or suspected by anyone that gave it any real thought.
Also no surprise... The VAST majority of American citizens are to self-centered to care. They just don't care! 'It's not happening to me(that I know of) and I don't give a flying fuck about you.'
People are too stupid to care. This situation will get a hell of a lot worse before anyone tries to do anything about it. The perfect example is last Sunday's lie that the NSA was ceasing broad collection. Nobody knows about it, even fewer care about it and the NSA sure as hell didn't stop shit! But, who cares, right?
You are all Cows. Cows say nothing. nothing. nothing! nothing cows nothing! nothing say the cows. YOU GAG ORDERED COWS!!!
"The notion that the government can collect cellphone location information — to turn your cellphone into a tracking device, just by signing a letter — is extremely troubling,"
Really? THAT is what you call extremely troubling?
Here's what is truly troubling...the fact that every owner of a smart phone already did this in some way when they agreed to the EULA attached to the power button, and yet none realize it.
It didn't take governments to eliminate privacy or security. Cheap-ass consumers hell-bent on demanding all services be given to them for free did that.
The FBI believes that NSL's have no limits and would like to keep it that way.
From TFLA:
The FBI issues the letters, known as NSLs, without any judicial review whatsoever. And they come with a gag order.
But a federal District Court judge in New York ruled in September that the continuous ban on Merrill’s speech about the order was not justified, considering that the FBI’s investigation was long over and most details about the order were already openly available.
[...]
The court ruling noted that the FBI is no longer requesting this type of information using NSLs, but wants to maintain the possibility of doing so in the future.
The question of whether law enforcement should be required to get a warrant before obtaining detailed cell site location information is currently being reviewed in several federal District Courts, though the Supreme Court recently turned the case down.
NSLs are restricted to allowing collection only of "non-content information", or metadata. But what does that mean? In the case of telephone calls, it's pretty clear. With web history, though, it's much less clear, because a list of URLs is a list not only of which servers you connected to, but in most cases also what information you retrieved. The URL doesn't contain the information itself, but it's trivial for someone else to retrieve it and find out what you read.
Cell location information is another debatable case. While in some sense it is metadata if we consider the content to be what you talk about on the phone, the data you send/receive, etc., it's also tantamount to having a tracking device on almost everyone. Courts have ruled that GPS tracking without a warrant is unconstitutional, and it really seems that this is the same thing. The precision is lower, but it's still pretty darned good.
As for purchases, it would seem that information about what you bought and how much you paid for it would constitute "content", while the times and locations of the transactions would be metadata.
IP addresses of people you corresponded with... that seems like pure metadata, and is unsurprising to me.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The result of this strategy, of course, is a small population of ever more skilled people who can hide illegal activities via encryption, message splitting, or other methods, while making the noise (i.e. banal, legal activity) more voluminous, easy to get, expensive to process, and meaningless.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
The FBI has refused to detail publicly the kinds of private data it believes it can obtain with an NSL.
The truly troubling part is not the specifics of what they collect, but the fact that they think that they should operate with no accountability to the citizenry. A government operating on secret interpretations of laws is entirely at odds with a democratic system.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Note what this (or any) NSL does not request, for good or ill given the explosion in digital communications since Smith v Maryland in 1979 and subsequent case law (which effectively says that metadata, as "business records" provided to a third party, do not have an expectation of privacy and are not covered by the Fourth Amendment): CONTENT of communications.
Note what is also missing here: the target. People assume it's an innocent US Person. The fact is, if a NSL is used, the person is almost certainly a foreign intelligence target under active investigation, and the reason why requests are "dropped" is because IF a NSL was used in the first place, we don't want to reveal any further sources, methods, or what we know.
Unless and until the Supreme Court of the United States speaks on this matter again -- and it very well may, and it very well may rule differently given how the communications landscape has changed in 35+ years -- that is the law of the land. Not peoples' opinions, not tech commentator know-it-alls, not self-proclaimed security experts.
If something doesn't legally require a warrant, it amounts to a formal request. I'm not saying it's always perfect execution, but the whole purpose of a NSL is so that it runs through its own legal process -- which, again, is for information that does NOT require a warrant. I know people think it has no oversight, but either something requires judicial oversight, or it doesn't. And NSLs DO have massive amounts of LEGAL oversight, just not a warrant signed by a judge -- repeating myself here -- because one isn't required for information sought by a NSL.
And like information that we seek under Intelligence Community authorities, we don't want the target of the collection or surveillance knowing we are targeting them, or where, or how. Yeah, it sucks, and it's imperfect, and all that, but even in a democratic society, you can't just say every single national security or intelligence issue has to be in the open. That's not how even democratic societies work, or can work, or should work, when it comes to national security matters. Some things tilt too far in one direction based on national events, or politics, etc. Then they tilt back. It's never fast enough for proponents or critics.
The main issue is that people say that something like a NSL is "bad" because it doesn't have judicial oversight in the form of a warrant. If the information sought doesn't legally require a warrant, I don't know what to tell them. Then when we do actual court orders and warrants when required for foreign intelligence collection, issued by the very court whose sole purpose is to protect the rights of Americans under the law and Constitution in the context of foreign intelligence collection, they complain because the evidence is heard and rulings are issued in secret.
A NSL at its core is nothing more than a formal process and notification, with a lot of other legal considerations surrounding it, that is the equivalent of someone saying, "Hey, can you help us out...and oh, by the way, here's a bunch of other legal crap which justifies this. And don't tell anyone, because this is a national security issue." I understand why people make an issue of it, because they'll say, ok, even if it's used for all "bad guys" it still "could be abused". Uh, and? Any government power at all "can be abused". Secret ones "can be abused" in secret.
And yet, the government still has to have powers, and some of them on the national security and intelligence side are necessarily cloaked in secrecy. And in the conduct of war, diplomacy, law enforcement, and counterterrorism as the United States, with our myriad interests at home and abroad, we do all of these things for a reason. No, it's never perfect, and it never will be. People act surprised when the use of something like NSLs skyrockets since the late 90s...well, guess what else skyrocketed since the late 90s? The goddamned internet, which we invented, and our enemies are literally using it against us. No, not bullshit lik
The Paris attack happened because the intelligence agencies are spending so much time/money/manpower spying on "law abiding" citizens that they don't have time to actively watch the known troublemakers. The Paris attackers were on watch lists, they were known to be a threat.
I have no idea who your generalization is supposed to be covering. "Most" people would fall into the original comment. People who are too brainwashed to do anything, or care about anything, that the media does not tell them to do, or care, about. Mindless drones who sit staring at a 2.5x3" screen occasionally banging it with their thumbs. Reading 100 character strings for their life philosophy, and shouting down anyone that disagrees with their 140 character and 2 meme opinion.
I wish that was a scary exaggeration by Alex Jones or something, but sadly it's not. I have a kid in the UC system, relatives in U of Michigan Ann Arbor, and the last few places I work has built in social media systems with as many SJWs as you can find on Reddit's worst thread.
There is a minority of people that read and study beyond main stream media. Those people were pissed about the NSA dirt but had ideas ahead of time that it was happening. Those people were pissed about torture sites but had suspicions. We knew the wars in the middle east were based on fabrications, but we know what Eurasia is. There may be a majority of this extreme minority who would be frightened to speak publicly (I'm a skeptic but would be okay with this generalization).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Your whole extended statement fell apart with the title.
"NSL = for things that DO NOT require a warrant"
Actually, warrants are the mechanism by which a free society achieves balance between personal and collective rights. Absent that...
Nope. Not everything government does requires a warrant. That is an undeniable fact. The case law which says metadata, for example, affirmatively does not require a warrant, has no expectation of privacy, and is not covered by the Fourth Amendment, is over 35 years old.
It got even weaker when you stated that "NSLs DO have massive amounts of LEGAL oversight..." States facts not in evidence. What, exactly, are these "massive" oversight mechanisms?
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/in...
"Hey, can you help us out..." is laughable because you characterize this as a friendly understanding between actors who know each other. In fact an NSL is 100% coercive, cannot be challenged, and it's secrecy is the ultimate weapon. An NSL compels the recipient to do as demanded and never tell anyone else. The NSL itself could be illegal but the recipient cannot even inform a lawyer, as that would violate the secrecy provisions. Oh, but do tell us about the "massive" oversight.
But NSLs -- which are nothing more than a letter -- are not illegal. That's the point. In fact, the only thing found unconstitutional about NSLs were the extent and length of the gag orders accompanying them.
By your logic, any law enforcement or government entity should NEVER be able to approach a business about anything and ask for help. It should ALWAYS require a court order, no matter the information requested. That's how you might think it should work, but that is not compatible with reality.
When you state "...if a NSL is used, the person is almost certainly a foreign intelligence target under active investigation..." you put the cart before the horse. Your language is that of conclusions concerning a criminal, as found by a court of law. Except this comes before a court of law has had any chance to hear a case. This is lazy argumentation to support a flawed process.
No, you are putting the cart before the horse by implying that a warrant is required for information or persons who fundamentally DO NOT require a warrant. What you are essentially saying is that a warrant-like approval process needs to happen for any sort of action or information request government takes or makes, ever, to ensure that the government isn't "lying" about it not needing a warrant...which defeats the whole purpose, and timeliness, of not needing a warrant.
Finally, you mention FISA. This joke of a process has a 97% warrant approval rate. Standard court warrants have about a 60% approval rate. Literally nothing else needs be said about how weak the FISA process is; statistically, this approval rate cannot be explained or justified. Except, by repeating what the FISA court really is: A one-sided process meant to produce a Yes answer, with no right of reply or rebuttal. Retroactive FISA warrants are further evidence of the corrupt/flawed/lazy thinking that produced FISA in the first place.
This comment truly shows your ignorance, because you have no idea how FISA works. At all. The IC does not approach FISA with requests that will probably get denied, because it is a massive waste of time and resources for the literal armies of lawyers who submit FISA requests -- for FOREIGN intelligence collection -- on behalf of IC agencies. Law enforcement agencies, however, do this all the time because they have no other choice but to try. So your assumption that just because the approval rate is high is because it's a "rubber stamp" and really doesn't care about what it's approving is false.
Of course, you have already made up your mind and use a lot of specious and absolutely false logic to arrive at your conclusions, so this conversation is moot.
https://media.ccc.de/v/27c3-42...
New things are always on the horizon
You should always treat your cellphone as a tracking device.
NSL They didn't send me one yet. I wish the passive aggressive