ACLU: Hundreds of New Documents Reveal Expanded Military Role in Domestic Surveillance

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Mon Oct-15-07 05:41 PM
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ACLU: Hundreds of New Documents Reveal Expanded Military Role in Domestic Surveillance

Hundreds of New Documents Reveal Expanded Military Role in Domestic Surveillance (10/14/2007)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: media@aclu.org

NEW YORK - New documents uncovered as a result of an American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union lawsuit reveal that the Department of Defense secretly issued hundreds of national security letters (NSLs) to obtain private and sensitive records of people within the United States without court approval. A comprehensive analysis of 455 NSLs issued after 9/11 shows that the Defense Department seems to have collaborated with the FBI to circumvent the law, may have overstepped its legal authority to obtain financial and credit records, provided misleading information to Congress, and silenced NSL recipients from speaking out about the records requests, according to the ACLU.

"Once again, the Bush administration's unchecked authority has led to abuse and civil liberties violations," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "The documents make clear that the Department of Defense may have secretly and illegally conducted surveillance beyond the powers it was granted by Congress. It also appears as if the FBI is serving as a lackey for the DoD in misusing the Patriot Act powers. At the very least, it certainly looks like the FBI and DoD are conspiring to evade limits placed on the Department of Defense's surveillance powers."

NSLs are secretly issued by the government to obtain access to personal customer records from Internet service providers, financial institutions, and credit reporting agencies. In almost all cases, recipients of the NSLs are forbidden, or "gagged," from disclosing that they have received the letters. While the FBI has broad NSL powers and compliance with FBI-issued NSLs is mandatory, the Defense Department's NSL power is more limited in scope, and, in most cases, compliance with Defense Department demands is not mandatory.

In April, the ACLU filed Freedom of Information Act requests with both the Defense Department and the CIA seeking all documents related to their use of NSLs to gain access to personal records of people in the United States. And in June, the ACLU filed a lawsuit to force those agencies to turn over the requested documents. The Defense Department's NSL documents are the first materials received by the ACLU as part of this lawsuit.

"The expanded role of the military in domestic intelligence gathering is troubling. These documents reveal that the military is gaining access to records here in the U.S. � in secret and without any meaningful oversight," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project. "There are real concerns about the use of this intrusive surveillance power."

As first revealed by the New York Times in January, recipients of the letters have reported confusion over the scope of the information requested and whether compliance with the NSLs is legally required. The documents released to the ACLU confirm that the letters are coercive and do not make clear that compliance with the Defense Department's "requests" for information is voluntary.

These revelations about the Defense Department's use of NSLs come on the heels of widespread reports of other significant government abuses of the NSL power. A March 2007 report from the Justice Department's Inspector General (IG) estimated that the FBI issued over 143,000 NSLs between 2003 and 2005, an astronomical increase from previous years. The IG's report also found numerous examples of improper and illegal uses of NSLs by the FBI. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nationalsecurityletters/32145prs20071014.html