Editor's summary:

United States — On Thursday the Washington Post (subscription) was first to report about the Obama administration's desire to make it easier for the FBI to gain access to "an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation."

In short, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked Congress to make a "clarification" about the type of information the FBI can demand from a company via a National Security Letter (NSL). The DOJ wants to add the words "electronic communication transactional records" to the list of items an NSL can be applied to. The Post reports that government lawyers define this type of information as "addresses to which an Internet user sends e-mail; the times and dates e-mail was sent and received; and possibly a user's browser history."

Of course, the Obama administration's request is sending up a lot of red flags over privacy and data security. The Electronic Frontier Foundation was one of the first groups to jump on the Post story yesterday.

NSLs allow the FBI, without a court order, to force telecoms and ISPs to divulge certain elements of an individual's communications data if the FBI believes it is relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation, while compelling the company to keep the request secret. Here is the FBI FAQ about NSLs.

Posted by: Chef on Jul. 30, 2010 (8:39 am EST)