FBI going to court more often to get personal Internet-usage data

[alp227]

Source: Wash. Post

The FBI is increasingly going to court to get personal e-mail and Internet usage information as service providers balk at disclosing customer data without a judge’s orders.

Investigators once routinely used administrative subpoenas, called national security letters, seeking information about who sent and received e-mail and what Web sites individuals visited. The letters can be issued by FBI field offices on their own authority, and they obligate the recipients to keep the requests secret.

But more recently, many service providers receiving national security letters have limited the information they give to customers’ names, addresses, length of service and phone billing records.

“Beginning in late 2009, certain electronic communications service providers no longer honored” more expansive requests, FBI officials wrote in August, in response to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-going-to-court-more-often-to-get-personal-internet-usage-data/2011/10/25/gIQAM7s2GM_story.html

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. Keep wondering what will happen if I get one of those

I run my own "ISP" and there is *nothing* saved on the server. No logs, no emails, no nothing. It is also encrypted. Cost a bit more than basic cable, but not that much more.