Justice Department walks back transparency on national security letters Source: ift.tt/g5lp9S – Thursday, November 13, 2014 U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News) The government is retracting an argument made on appeal in a case challenging the constitutionality of an investigative tool widely used by the FBI to obtain data on Americans without court oversight. In a case being heard by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Ferrancisco, a Justice Department attorney last month asserted that companies that receive national security letters — an administrative subpoena that can be issued by a field office supervisor — can comment on the quality of NSLs they receive, including whether they think that the government is asking for too much. When attorneys for the plaintiff questioned the statement made by Appellate Litigation Counsel Douglas Letter, an attorney for the Civil Division Appellate Staff walked it back. Letters remarks were an inadvertent misstatement, said Jonathan H. Levy, a Civil Division attorney i n a letter to the clerk of the appeals court , noting the letter was being submitted to correct that error. The suggestion that a recipient can publicly discuss the fact that it had received one or more NSLs and could discuss the quality of the specific NSL(s) received is mistaken, Levy said. In fact, he said, the gag order on recipients applies to both the content of the NSLs and to the very fact of having received one. A company may, however, acknowledge it has received NSLs if it has gotte All Related Read More…… The post Justice Department walks back transparency on national security letters appeared first on GLOBAL NEWS. ift.tt/1sPiteo
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 05:22:28 +0000
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