ACLU Applauds Committee Passage of National Security Letter Reform
org
Washington,
DC – Today, the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties approved
legislation that would greatly reduce the scope of the National Security Letter
(NSL) statute. NSLs are secret government requests for information that are
used to collect private records without judicial oversight. The FBI’s gross
misuse and abuse of the NSL statute has led to consecutive and embarrassing
reports issued by the Department of Justice’s Office of the
Inspector General. In March, a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed
by the ACLU also uncovered abuses of the NSL statute by the Department of
Defense.
The following can
be attributed to Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington
Legislative Office:
“Time and time
again, the FBI has shown it cannot police itself when it comes to the overly
broad powers of the NSL. We applaud Representative Nadler and his
subcommittee for moving this bill towards passage. Abuses of the NSL
statute have been widely reported, but have yet to be
addressed.
“If Congress doesn’t take action to rein in this power it
will not only be sanctioning past abuses, but inviting further
misuse. Today’s mark up of the National Security Letter Reform Act of 2007
is a big step in the right direction. Since a legislative fix is long
overdue, we encourage the House to move this bill quickly to a
vote.”
For more information about the ACLU’s work on NSLs, go to:
www.aclu.org/nsl
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