National Security Letters & The Patriot Act

Quite possibly the greatest threat to freedom right now is the widespread use of national security letters, a form of warrant-replacement which can be issued by any FBI supervisor, without any form of judicial review. These "letters" can force libraries, banks, employers, and virtually any other company or institution to turn over sensitive information on any American citizen, while prohibiting these same institutions from informing you that information was collected. The FBI need not establish that the person being investigated has committed any crime, and can gather massive amounts of information on any person they wish, with no judicial "check" or "balance" necessary.

These "letters" are a blatant circumvention of judicial review and the entire principle upon which warrants are based. It allows the executive branch unfettered access to virtually all existant information about any individual, without the inconvenience of having to secure a warrant from a judge. With these letters, the FBI can peruse at their whim every transaction record, every purchase or library check-out, what you watch on TV, who you call, where you spend your time and money, and any other detail of your life that is normally kept completely confidential. The extent to which a person's views, preferences, routines, qualities and vices can be determined through such information is shocking. The FBI can draw a startlingly clear profile of any person's lifestyle from the information generated by eating, drinking, buying, and simply living life in our digital age.

Prior to 9/11, if the FBI investigated a citizen in this manner and found no evidence of criminal activity, they were required to destroy the information. This is no longer so, since George W. Bush ordered such information to be retained and made accessible to all levels of government and even some private entities. In his (geniusly titled) article "An enemy of the state," (link here) Doug Thompson quotes a friend of his in the justice department, talking about national security letters: "You can’t keep anything hidden. Your life is an open book with us and it will be to the day you die." Even worse is that the current use of these letters is purely totalitarian and has nothing to do with "democracy"; the letters were made into what they are now by Bush's Executive Order (royal decree) 13388.

The FBI now issues 30,000 such letters yearly, one hundred times the "historical norm," according to the Washington Post (story here). This drastic increase in the usage of the letters sends the clear message that the government is spending ever-more time and money spying on American citizens, and is doing so in a completely unaccountable manner. The potential for abuse in these letters is great, and there is evidence that these letters have already been used extensively to spy on political opponents (a la COINTELPRO), as described by Doug Thompson in his above article.

Under the guise of investigating terrorism, the federal government is amassing huge amounts of easily exploitable information about law-abiding American citizens, securing unprecedented power over every American while obliterating any semblance of real freedom or privacy in our country. In all probability these letters have already been used illegally for the manipulation of political opponents or for simply consolidating greater power. Such abuse is very probable for the simple reason that there is no check or balance to prevent such abuse or hold those who abuse their power accountable. It is the very nature of the national security letters that they are extremely prone to abuse. It takes very little for the government to move from amassing information on citizens to actively and "extralegally" interfering with them, as was revealed in the 1960's and 70's and on numerous other occasions when the FBI and CIA have taken matters into their own hands, eschewing the protections of the constitution or any limitation by the judicial branch. Combined with the militarization of police forces throughout the nation and the atmosphere of fear generated by the constant threat of terrorism, freedom in America is in greater danger than ever, and has already been alarmingly rolled back and degraded. As the police/surveillance state comes into full bloom, this is most definitely not a good time to be an American.