Judge Orders Google To Comply With FBI's Warrantless NSL Requests 167
An anonymous reader writes "CNet reports that a U.S. District Court Judge has rejected Google's attempt to fight 19 National Security Letters, which are used by the FBI to gather information on users without a warrant. Quoting: 'The litigation taking place behind closed doors in Illston's courtroom — a closed-to-the-public hearing was held on May 10 — could set new ground rules curbing the FBI's warrantless access to information that Internet and other companies hold on behalf of their users. The FBI issued 192,499 of the demands from 2003 to 2006, and 97 percent of NSLs include a mandatory gag order. It wasn't a complete win for the Justice Department, however: Illston all but invited Google to try again, stressing that the company has only raised broad arguments, not ones "specific to the 19 NSLs at issue." She also reserved judgment on two of the 19 NSLs, saying she wanted the government to "provide further information" prior to making a decision.' This does not affect the Electronic Frontier Foundation's challenge to the constitutionality of the letters in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals."
Re:What's the government's problem? (Score:5, Informative)
Because a warrant has provisions for letting people know about them.
NSLs are super duper top secret, and you can't tell anybody about them. As in, there's no real oversight of them, and as long as they keep them secret they can do anything they want to.
Surely you don't expect an open and honest process? They wouldn't be looking at these people if they didn't already know they were terrorists ... what are you, some kind of hippy?