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Yahoo Becomes First Company To Disclose FBI National Security Letters (tumblr.com)
Yahoo has disclosed receipt of three national security letters (FBI requests for data that Yahoo is typically barred from sharing) and published redacted copies of the letters online for anyone to see. The company says that the move "marks the first time any company has publicly acknowledged receiving an NSL following the reforms of the USA Freedom Act." The bill was created last year allowing companies to gag orders relating to National Security Letters. Engadget reports: It takes some doing to get permission to acknowledge the receipt of a letter, too -- Yahoo says that the FBI needs to review if the nondisclosure provision is still necessary for each specific NSL before allowing a company to publish it, and even then certain information needs to be redacted before being made available to the public. Still, when companies do get these gag orders lifted, it allows them to notify the investigated parties that the FBI was looking into their data, and it's a big win for transparency overall.
after some period. As I understand it the whole point of keeping the existence of a NSL secret is to stop the crook/whoever from being alerted to the police/whatever investigation into him. So: once the crook is locked up there is little reason to keep it secret. There is also an argument that the NSLs should be disclosed at the crook's trial.
I do understand that matters are more complex, a crook could be part of a gang and investigations into other gangsters could be hampered by disclosure that is too early.
There should be an assumption in law that all NSLs should be disclosed after some time, eg 10 or 30 years. It would be up to the police to argue that disclosure should be delayed in particular cases.
Above I talk of crooks, much the same arguments apply about terrorists, paedophiles, etc. Ditto: police to be FBI, NSA, etc