FBI's Spy Tool Details Exposed After Gag Order Is Lifted

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Nicholas Merrill, founder of a small ISP, disclosed publicly on Monday how broadly the FBI has secretly issued National Security Letters (NSLs) that allow the collecting of data about US citizens without a warrant or judicial oversight.

Merrill's disclosure -- which follows an 11-year legal battle -- is made even more chilling when one considers that an NSL almost always comes with a built-in gag order. This order prevents the recipient from disclosing the letter to its target, or to the public.

That unrestrained gagging was central to the decision by a federal district court to invalidate the gag order in full.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero on Aug. 28 found that "the non-disclosure requirement enforced against him [Merrill] was overly broad and could not be supported by a 'good reason.' "

[Read The NSA, Surveillance, And What CIOs Need To Know.]

There was a stay on the order for 90 days to allow for an appeal. Since there was none, as of this week, Merrill is free to speak about the case.

He told Reuters that Judge Marrero's ruling is significant "because the public deserves to know how the government is gathering information without warrants on Americans who are not even suspected of a crime."

The NSL became part of the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. According to a Justice Department inspector general report, the FBI issued 143,074 NSLs between 2003 and 2005. Merrill's case marks the first time an NSL gag order has been lifted in full, according to a Yale Law School blog post.

"For more than a decade, the government has refused to allow Mr. Merrill and other NSL recipients to tell the public just how broadly the FBI has interpreted its authority to surveil individuals' digital lives in secret using NSLs," the blog noted. 

Merrill's legal journey began in 2004 when the FBI issued him an NSL targeting one of the customers of his ISP, Calyx Internet Access, in New York. The FBI subsequently dropped the demands, but Merrill fought the gag order attached to the NSL.

"The FBI has interpreted its NSL authority to encompass the websites we read, the Web searches we conduct, the people we contact, and the places we go. This kind of data reveals the most intimate details of our lives, including our political activities, religious affiliations, private relationships, and even our private thoughts and beliefs," Merrill told Ars Technica. 

According to court documents, the FBI was asking for:

In 2007, Merrill wrote an anonymous op-ed piece for the Washington Post in which he accused the FBI of withholding documents. "The inspector general's report confirms that Congress lacked a complete picture of the problem during a critical time [re-authorization of the Patriot Act]: Even though the NSL statute requires the director of the FBI to fully inform members of the House and Senate about all requests issued under the statute, the FBI significantly underrepresented the number of NSL requests in 2003, 2004 and 2005, according to the report," he wrote.

President Obama's Intelligence Review Group in 2013 noted that there are about 60 NSLs issued per day.

NSLs are routinely sent to major tech firms such as Facebook and Microsoft.

Perhaps sensing that the tide is turning against the government, President Obama told the Justice Department to amend the gag order in January 2014 so that it is not permanent.

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