Judge rules FBI can continue to gag recipient of National Security Letter

A federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the government can continue to gag an internet servicer provider who received a National Security Letter from the FBI -- five years ago. Under the Patriot Act, the FBI can use such letters to demand personal records about customers from internet providers, financial institutions and credit card companies without a warrant, and then keep the companies from disclosing even that they'd received such a letter. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the ISP. The government maintains that revealing information about the letter could compromise ongoing investigations, even though the letter itself was sent five years ago and has been the subject of press accounts. The court also ruled that the FBI can continue to suppress an "attachment" to the NSL Doe received, the ACLU said. The ACLU "argued that the attachment, if disclosed, would show that the FBI tried to obtain records that it was not entitled to obtain under the NSL statute."...read more