Are You a National Security Threat?

If you have been deemed to be of interest to any government, don't expect anyone to let you know you're being investigated.  The FBI has issued thousands of requests every year for information held by Google and Microsoft, and nobody can reveal who or what is being investigated.  I read a story in PC Magazine  that portrayed the number of requests as trivial, why it's barely .02% of all users.  That may sound like practically nothing, but the numbers are frightening to me. 

"Microsoft received 75,378 requests for user data in 2012 from U.S. and foreign governments, and fulfilled a little over 80 percent of the requests"  they go on to say "The requests potentially impacted 137,424 accounts ... Interestingly, the bulk of requests came from foreign governments, with just a mere 11,073 requests from the U.S. government." 

May I quibble with the use of the word "mere" in describing over 11,000 requests in 2012?  That's about 30 requests a day in the US that they claim are necessary to protect the country.  That sounds like an extreme number to me, and much more indicative of fishing expeditions rather than targeted investigating.  We'll never know who those people are, but given the rate of charges being filed, maybe twenty or so a year, they're casting a pretty wide net. 

See this article discussing terrorism cases brought to trial in the 10 years following 9/11.  "Of the nearly 200 most serious terrorism cases brought to court since the September 11 attacks, some 178 have ended in convictions, either through a guilty plea or a jury's decision, according to an Associated Press review of government documents and interviews with prosecutors and defense attorneys." .

"Critics say the conviction rate is boosted by the Justice Department's overly broad definition of terrorism, as well as reluctance by jurors to acquit on such serious charges, and defendants' acceptance of plea bargains because of fear of going to trial.".

A Federal judge just ruled that the FBI use of "National Security Letters" were unconstitutional, but the Obama Administration will appeal that.

FBI Secret spying on US citizens ruled Unconstitutional

A Federal Judge in San Francisco has sided with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a California Telecommunications company, Credo, in declaring the secretive FBI spying authorized by the Patriot Act unconstitutional.  Michael Kieschnick, chief executive of Credo Mobile, hailed the judge's order as "the most significant court victory for our constitutional rights since the dark day when George W Bush signed the Patriot Act".

District Judge Susan Illston held that the law unconstitutionally barred the service providers who receive the letters from discussing them publicly until the government gave them permission. That "gag rule" effectively prevented the public from debating a controversial exercise in governmental power even after any justification for the secrecy had passed, Illston ruled. She also took issue with the power the law gives the FBI to stop a court from ordering disclosure, saying it violated the Constitution's separation of powers.
Illston ordered the FBI to stop issuing national security letters and not to enforce the gag rule on any previously issued letter. But she prevented her decision from going into effect for 90 days to give the Obama administration a chance to appeal.

 The FBI had gone wild since given their Secret Police powers.  Google received between zero and 999 NSLs in 2009, as well as 2010, 2011, and 2012. That's not a lot of useful data, but it's more than we knew even one day ago.  We are pretty sure the number is a lot bigger than zero, probably in the hundreds. 
The FBI made 16,511 national-security-letter requests for information regarding 7,201 people in 2011, the latest data available. The FBI uses the letters to collect unlimited kinds of sensitive, private information, such as financial and phone records.  In case you were looking the other way, The FBI made 16,511 national-security-letter requests for information regarding 7,201 people in 2011

In Oregon, Ron Wyden voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act, but tried to modify its more odious provisions, while Jeff Merkley and Earl Blumenauer voted against it on Civil Liberties grounds..