Feds collecting hoards of personal Internet data

The agency has been collecting the personal Internet data through so-called “National Security Letters.”

“For more than a decade, the FBI has been demanding extremely sensitive personal information about private citizens just by issuing letters to online companies like mine,” said Nicholas Merrill, who owned the New York-based Calyx Internet Access.

“The FBI has interpreted its NSL authority to encompass the websites we read, the web searches we conduct, the people we contact, and the places we go. This kind of data reveals the most intimate details of our lives, including our political activities, religious affiliations, private relationships, and even our private thoughts and beliefs,” Merrill said.

Through the letters, which do not require a warrant, the FBI has the right to demand “electronic communications transactional records” from Internet companies. Its power to do so expanded under the Patriot Act of 2001, but the agency has kept complete details of the program a secret.

According to Merrill, some of the information the agency obtains through the letters includes complete web browsing histories; the IP addresses of all those with whom a subject corresponds; and the records of online purchases. A report from the Justice Department’s inspector general indicates the FBI issued more than 400,000 such requests between 2003 and 2011.

Merrill’s announcement came after the federal district court in Manhattan lifted a 2004 gag order that prevented him from divulging the details of National Security Letter requests made of his company.

“Courts cannot, consistent with the First Amendment, simply accept the government’s assertions that disclosure would implicate and create a risk,” Judge Victor Merrero wrote in the Nov. 30 decision.

Following the decision’s release, Merrill added on Twitter, “The FBI should not be able to silence innocent critics like myself — or hide abuses — simply by saying the magic words ‘National Security.'”