FBI Violates Online Privacy for Fourth Year in a Row

"Did you do it?"
"No!"
"FBI, we have the documentation right here!"
"Oh, all right, I might have…"

That’s the short version of the announcement the Federal Bureau of Investigation made today, paving the way for the audit to be issued on the 9th of March this year. The abuse allegedly was a result of investigations aimed at tracking terrorists and spies in 2006.

There’s no telling how the next year audit will look like, taking into account that the broad new reforms against such privacy violations were only enacted last March, but checking out the trend of not giving up on any of the abuses from the previous four years, drastic changes aren’t likely to be noticed. FBI director Robert Mueller blamed this, in part, on the overzealous banks, telecommunication companies and other private businesses that provided way too much personal data than was initially requested.

One major issue with the FBI is the overuse of the national security letters, administrative subpoenas used in suspected terrorism and espionage cases, that allow requesting telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses to produce highly personal records about their customers or subscribers without a judge’s approval, as the Associated Press revealed.

They have been broadly overused by the FBI in the past and, according to Mueller, the audit to come will find that the situation hasn’t changed. Last year, the Bureau underreported to the Congress the number of such national security letters being requested by more than 4,600.

All the problems and liberties that the FBI is abusing have been caused by the free interpretation of the Patriot Act that the Bush administration strongly endorsed. On a side note, the same administration is trying to object to the release of the annual review demanded by the Congress.

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