Lawmakers Want FBI Access to Data Curbed By Carrie Johnson

[Demeter]

Source: Washington Post

Bipartisan groups in Congress are pressing to place new controls on the FBI's ability to demand troves of sensitive personal information from telephone providers and credit card companies, over the opposition of agency officials who say they deserve more time to clean up past abuses.

Proposals to rein in the use of secret "national security letters" will be discussed over the next week at hearings in both chambers. The hearings stem from disclosures that the FBI had clandestinely gathered telephone, e-mail and financial records "sought for" or "relevant to" terrorism or intelligence activities without following appropriate procedures. The Justice Department's inspector general issued reports in 2007 and earlier this year citing repeated breaches. They included shoddy FBI paperwork, improper claims about nonexistent emergencies and an insufficient link between the data requests and ongoing national security probes.

"It is clear that the NSL authority is too overbroad and operates unchecked," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a co-sponsor of the House bill. "We must give our law enforcement the tools they need to protect us, but any such powers must be consistent with the rule of law." ...The House bill, sponsored by Nadler, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), would tighten the language governing when national security letters could be used, by requiring that they clearly pertain to investigations of a foreign power or an agent instead of just being considered "relevant" to such investigations. The House bill would also force the FBI to destroy information that had been illegally obtained -- something that existing rules do not require -- and it would allow the recipient of a letter to file a civil lawsuit if the missive is found to be illegal or without sufficient factual justification.

A Senate bill, sponsored by Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and John E. Sununu (R-N.H.), would require the FBI to track its use of the letters more carefully and would narrow the types of records that can be obtained with a letter, and therefore without judicial approval, to those that are least sensitive.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041402664.html

[OKthatsIT]

1. Well it's probably going to be another nice gesture...

making politicians look like they're watching out for US...at least Congress is pointing their finger at the criminals.

But it really doesn't mean a damn thing, does it?

The war on terror is a fraud So what's the point?