National security letter
By law, NSLs can request only non-content information, for example, transactional records and phone numbers dialed, but never the content of telephone calls or e-mails.
On remand, the district court held the "NSLs were issued in full compliance with the procedural and substantive requirements suggested by the Second Circuit in John Doe, Inc. v. Mukasey, 549 F.3d 861 (2d Cir.
Compliance by the recipient of the NSL was voluntary and state laws for consumer privacy often allowed financial institutions to reject the requests.
[citation needed] Section 505 of the USA PATRIOT Act (2001) allowed the use of the NSLs when seeking information "relevant" in authorized national security investigations to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.
The act also provided the Department of Defense when conducting a law enforcement investigation, counterintelligence inquiry, or security determination.
[7] Two contentious aspects of NSLs are the nondisclosure provision and judicial oversight when the FBI issues an NSL, both of which federal courts have held to be constitutional.
[8] An NSL recipient (later revealed to be Nicholas Merrill[9][10]) writing in The Washington Post said, [L]iving under the gag order has been stressful and surreal.
A subsequent report in 2014 conduced by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General concluded the FBI had corrected its practices and that NSLs now complied with federal law.
According to a September 9, 2007, New York Times report, In many cases, the target of a[n FBI] national security letter whose records are being sought is not the subject of a terrorism investigation.
Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the FBI must assert that the records gathered through the letter are considered relevant to a terrorism [or counterintelligence] investigation.
The lack of judicial oversight and the Supreme Court ruling in Smith v. Maryland was the core of Doe v. Ashcroft, a test case brought by the ACLU concerning the use of NSLs.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of "John Doe" plaintiff Nicholas Merrill, founder of Calyx Internet Access,[15] who had received an NSL.
Because of the New York district court ruling, while the case was still on appeal, Congress amended the USA PATRIOT Act to provide for more judicial review of NSLs and clarified the NSL nondisclosure provision.
In March 2008, the Second Circuit ruled that nondisclosure provisions were permissible only when the FBI certified that disclosure may result in certain statutorily enumerated harms (see, e.g., 18 U.S.C.
On April 28, 2006, the Department of Justice reported to the House and Senate that in calendar year 2005, "The Government made requests for certain information concerning 3,501 United States persons pursuant to NSLs.
