Senators wary as FBI spying on e-mail soars

mkpdavies · 08-11-2005, 06:58 PM

http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr=...ZxZWVFRXl5Mg==

Quote:

WASHINGTON - Lawmakers expressed concern Sunday that the FBI was aggressively pushing the powers of the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act to get access to private phone and financial records of ordinary people.

"We should be looking at that very closely," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden, D-Del., who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It appears to me that this is, if not abused, being close to abused."

Here be a lesson to those who trust their government implicitly

Quote:

Under the Patriot Act, the FBI issues more than 30,000 national security letters allowing the investigations each year, a hundredfold increase over historic norms, The Washington Post reported Sunday, quoting unnamed government sources.

The security letters, which were first used in the 1970s, allow access to people's phone and e-mail records, as well as financial data and the Internet sites they surf. The 2001 Patriot Act removed the requirement that the records sought be those of someone under suspicion.

As a result, FBI agents can review the digital records of a citizen as long as the bureau can certify that the person's records are "relevant" to a terrorist investigation.

Mass surveillance of the people. Coming to Britain soon, from the same people who brought you the Iraq war, European Union and Stealth Tax.

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