U.S.-China Surveillance

It’s been several days now since the blockbuster revelations coming from the U.S. Justice Department Inspector General’s report, A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Use of National Security Letters. I thought I would share some of the most interesting postings I’ve seen about the report and its implications. The JURIST has an excellent and brief synopsis with multiple follow-up links such as the FAS backgrounder on National Security Letters and the Inspector General’s own plans for corrective actions. A number of sites including Wired’s 27B Stroke 6 blog have reproduced a key diagram in the report, “How the FBI uses National Security Letters.” The ACLU has issued a call for repeal of these expanded Patriot Act powers, while Matthew Rothschild at the Progressive has called for outlawing national security letters. My favorite post so far is by former FBI agent and current candidate for for U.S. Congress in Minnesota’s Second Congressional District Colleen Rowley, who writes at some length at the Huffington Post about how she warned of these abuses four years ago. In particular I like what she says about the likely utility of this practice for protecting national security:

Maybe 150,000 plus NSLs later, someone might remember what former FBI Director Louie Freeh’s opinion was as to why the “dots had not been connected” pre-9/11. He said something like “the intelligence we had was like a fire hose; with so much coming out, it was hard to get a drink.” But if data collection was like a fire hose before 9-11, it soon became Niagara Falls! Freeh’s analogy would mean it’s a lot harder to connect the dots now amongst the massive collection of telephone, internet communications, bank, credit and other records that have cluttered up intelligence databases.