Schneier on Security

Carlo Graziani • March 12, 2007 5:48 PM

This is an epicyclic scandal. The central scandal here is the Patriot Act itself, which represents an exercise in defending the nation by undermining the principles that make it worth defending in the first place.

The country is to scared to care, however. Don’t expect to see any members of Congress grilled about their votes on the Patriot Act the way they are now being grilled about their votes on the Iraq War Resolution. The public has – belatedly – decided the war was a bad idea after all. By the time they change their mind about the desirability of becoming a high-surveillance police state, I doubt there will be very much that can be done about it.

“Land Of The Free”. I’d snicker, if it didn’t hurt.

Carlo Graziani • March 13, 2007 10:38 AM

@C Gomez:

There is an interesting review and critique of the Patriot Act here:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3805/is_200511/ai_n16013129/pg_1

While it is true that there were National Security Letters prior to 2001, the attendant gag orders were essentally voluntary, and not enforceable, and the letters had to be signed by a Deputy Director of the FBI.

According to the article just cited, the Patriot Act changed NSLs as follows:

(1) broadening the scope of investigations to which NSLs apply, from “an authorized foreign counterintelligence operation” to “an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities”;

(2) substituting the requisite nexus to a foreign power with the requirement that the information sought is merely “relevant” to the investigation;

(3) applying this “relevance” standard instead of the individualized suspicion requirement of “specific and articulable” facts; and,

(4) extending NSL issuing authority to “Special Agent[s] in Charge” at FBI field offices.

In other words, the standards for issuing letters were loosened to the point that almost no serious legal restriction remained, and — crucially — the administrative bottleneck represented by the requirement of an FBI DA signature was removed, making it bureaucratically possible to begin issuing NSLs by the bale.

That’s in part why complaints of misuse of NSLs by the FBI are so hilariously off-base. Even fully statutory usage of NSLs constitutes a substantial menace to personal liberty, personified by field agents who can easily meet statutory requirements to hit whomever they like with an NSL, for almost any reason.