WARNING: Broad FBI Access To Email Snuck Into Intelligence Bill (VIDEO)

A truly alarming report from the Intercept revealed that the U.S. Senate is trying to vastly expand the power of the FBI. They want to allow the bureau to get information about our online activities without having to get a warrant. The secretive text was added to the Senate’s annual Intelligence Authorization Act, and has only been debated behind closed doors.

Right now, according to the report, the FBI is allowed to get some information about electronic communications through the use of a controversial provision called “national security letters. (NSLs)” These documents allow the government to demand that service providers like phone companies provide information about user’s names, addresses, and email accounts.

The letters are dangerous because they can be used without any judicial oversight. Unlike a warrant, no judge decides that the information requested is needed as part of a criminal investigation.

Worse still, the people who are the targets of the probes are under gag orders, and can’t talk about the invasive searches to anyone. They can’t go to the media. They can’t go to the police.

In 2008, the Justice Department puts some limits on the use of NSLs, according to the Intercept, saying they could not be used to find out email subject lines, URLs visited, and other metadata. That information was thought to be too specific, and getting it without a warrant considered an invasion of privacy.

Now the Senate wants to override that ruling by inserting a new provision into its bill. The sneaky new text would allow the FBI to demand search histories, URLs, email subject lines, and more.

All of this information would be gathered in complete secrecy, with no oversight at all the Intercept reports. If it passes, it will give the government vastly more power to spy on the electronic communications of millions of innocent citizens.


As citizens, we need to keep alert to what goes on up on Capitol Hill. It may look like they are just wasting time up there, but sometimes they actually get things done.

That’s even scarier than knowing that they are currently sitting there in gridlock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frFQdxcauMU

Featured image by Andre Gustavo Stumpf via Flickr. Available through Creative Commons license 2.0

Karen is a retired elementary school teacher with many years of progressive activism behind her. She is the proud mother of three young adults who were all arrested with Occupy Wall Street. To see what she writes about in her spare time, check out her blog at "Empty Nest, Full Life"