US Senate Asks for National Security Letter Explanation

A group of U.S. Senators are asking the FBI to explain a recent controversial National Security Letter sent to the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive was able to defeat the request with help from the EFF and the ACLU this past April. "The Internet Archive's case is only the third known legal challenge to NSLs, despite the fact that the the FBI issues tens of thousands a year -- more than 100,000 such letters were issued in 2004 and 2005 combined. But despite the lack of legal challenges from recipients at ISPs, telephone companies and credit bureaus, successive scathing reports from the Justice Department's Inspector General have found illegal letters and a willy-nilly culture within the bureau towards tracking their usage."

Re:They would, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress has any power they give themselves not explicitly denounced as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in review, and when they get a large enough consensus they can change even that. More explicitly, Congress controls the budget: All the other branches of government could piss and moan about it all they like, but a strong congress could turn everyone out into the streets until they backed down.

Re:They would, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress has any power they give themselves not explicitly denounced as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in review

Good Lord! Is that what they're teaching you kids in civics class these days? Cheer up emo kid, no branch of government has the ability to simply grant itself powers; all such self-granted powers would be, by definition, unconstitutional.

Yeah, but you're as far off base as emo kid!

Good Lord! Is that what they taught you in civics class back then? Cheer up boomer dude, The Executive has the ability to simply grant itself powers; as long as the Department of Justice (which is part of the Executive Branch) chooses to Congressional requests for information (and when the requests are ignored, to also ignore Congressional subpoenae issued against other members of the Executive!), no charges are filed, no arrests are made, and the case (and its constitutional issues) never reaches the Judicial Branch, and in the absence of a judge's ruling, the Executive's actions can never, by defintion, be ruled unconstitutional.

(I'm not the original AC, as you might guess. Google "inherent contempt", and "contempt of Congress". It may sound like I was going for +5, Funny, but it's actually been happening for real over the past 6-12 months. Long enough for everyone to forget what the original issue was, other than that it's useful for making the other side look bad in an election year.)

Related interview

[proxima]

On the Media [onthemedia.org] had an interview (transcript and mp3 download available) last week with Internet Archive co-founder Brewster Kahle. [onthemedia.org] about his personal experience with the national security letter. Interesting stuff, but perhaps not much new if you've been keeping up with this.

Re:They would, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

All excellent points ... however, Executive Orders have been happening a lot longer than 6-12 months... but the plan for the Executive Branch to play hard-to-get with Congress over information "protected" by an EO has been going on for *years*. Look at some of the earlier EOs, from 2001-2005, which Congress is still struggling with.

Re:It's about time

[jamstar7]

They also left us other documents that go a long way to explaining where their heads were at. Federalist Papers [wikipedia.org] anyone? More nifty stuff [foundingfathers.info] is available at the click of a mouse.

Re:They would, but...

[sumdumass]

As long as the department is there and part of the Executive (like the constitution says), the president can direct them to do anything that is legal even if the congress pulled their funding in protest. Congress can only stop the executive from using his powers over the organization is it exists by stopping it from existing. In order to completely de-fund the FBI, congress would have to disband it.

This isn't a situation as simple as saying we will cut your funding so don't do this. As long as funds are there, the executive can direct it's use to any legal act under his power and congress is bound by the constitution to honor any debt incured. One might also argue that funding from other areas could be funneled over to support certain operations in the de-funded department. I have seen this happen first hand where HUD vouchers and First time home owners loan money has been diverted as loans for other projects (not related to HUD) leaving everyone in my county wanting to use those program up a creek. This was challenged and upheld in the courts.

So they can't simply take funding away. They would have to disband or dissolve the department in the process and they could only do that if it wasn't in the constitution (most aren't). There is significantly more at stake when removing a department or office of the executive.

Re:They would, but...

[sumdumass]

If your still confused, you could just read the constitution [cornell.edu] which sets the government up and provides their roles and responsibilities.

Sure people attempt to stack appointive position in an attempt to retain power or further a goal. That's called politics. FDR was the first president to start us down the "unconstitutional is the norm path". A lot of his new deal policies were unconstitutional and ruled that way by courts and he basically said "so what, they aren't going away, so something about it". This is when the interstate commerce clause had become expanded and now almost anything in government can be justified by the interstate commerce clause. A lot of what is considered unconstitutional is done through some interpreted reading of the constitution.

Re:They would, but...

[sumdumass]

Article 3 section two puts it pretty clear,

The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;--to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;--to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;--to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;--to controversies between two or more states

All cases can't really be argued with. You should read it again, it give the SCOTUS a pretty broad reach.