FBI Targets Internet Archive With Secret 'National Security Letter', Loses

[jayfish]

Source: Wired

On November 26, 2007, the FBI served a controversial National Security Letter (.pdf) on the Internet Archive's founder Brewster Kahle, asking for records about one of the library's registered users, asking for the user's name, address and activity on the site.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Internet Archive's lawyers, fought the NSL, challenging its constitutionality in a December 14 complaint (.pdf) to a federal court in San Francisco. The FBI agreed on April 21 to withdraw the letter and unseal the court case, making some of the documents available to the public.


The Patriot Act greatly expanded the reach of NSLs, which are subpoenas for documents such as billing records and telephone records that the FBI can issue in terrorism investigations without a judge's approval. Nearly all NSLs come with gag orders forbidding the recipient from ever speaking of the subpoena, except to a lawyer.

Brewster Kahle called the gag order "horrendous," saying he couldn't talk about the case with his board members, wife or staff, but said that his stand was part of a time-honored tradition of librarians protecting the rights of their patrons.



Read more: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/internet-archiv.html

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Chalk one up for the good guys.

[sofa king]

1. Way to go!

Of course, the FBI probably already has the information, anyway. If they know where the information is, the U.S. government can steal it better than anyone else.

[Richard Steele]

2. WTG Mr. Kahle! K&R

[Supersedeas]

3. gagging the truth about this corrupt Admin -- Courts become a tool of partisan hacks