Scope of Secretive FBI National Security Letters Revealed by First Lifted Gag Order
Fourteen years after the FBI began using national security letters to
unilaterally and quietly demand records from Internet service
providers, telephone companies and financial institutions, one recipient
— former ISP founder Nicholas Merrill — is finally free to talk about
what it’s like to get one.
The FBI issues the letters, known as NSLs, without any judicial review whatsoever. And they come with a gag order.
But a federal District Court judge in New York ruled
in September that the continuous ban on Merrill’s speech about the
order was not justified, considering that the FBI’s investigation was
long over and most details about the order were already openly
available.
After waiting for 90 days to let the government appeal the decision — which it didn’t — the judge lifted the gag on Monday.
Merrill immediately released the FBI’s attachment
to the national security letter it sent him 11 years ago, listing the
kinds of information it wanted about a particular customer without
getting a warrant.
