I found this NPR story this morning very interesting. The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments today in a case that pits an individual's right of free speech and association against USAPA. The case is being brought by the nonprofit Humanitarian Law Project. Too bad the briefs for this case aren't publicly available yet (at least not on FindLaw :-( ). This would be a slam dunk for the Humanitarian Law Project if their name was followed by "LLC."

Here's a special weekend edition of lunchtime listens! A couple of weeks ago, Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive made news by challenging the FBI's illegal national security letter against the archive. The archive was also in the news because of Microsoft's decision to discontinue their live book search and the funding of the archive's Open Content Alliance book scanning project.

Now you can hear exactly what happened direct from Brewster himself. Listen to his interview a few days ago on This Week in Tech (TWIT). Happy listening!

Janet Nocek is director of the Portland library and a member of the Executive Board of Library Connection, a Greater Hartford library consortium that received a national security letter in June 2005. She says, "I Was Gagged By The Patriot Act While The Attorney General Was Free To Tell Falsehoods About It."

• Patriot Abuse, By Janet Nocek, Hartford Connecticut Courant (July 22, 2007).

We were therefore not allowed to testify to Congress about our experience with the letters - which seek information, without court review, on people like library users.

...Unfortunately, we were prohibited from speaking to the public - or even to our U.S. senators and representatives - until after the Patriot Act was reauthorized.

...Reportedly hundreds of thousands of security letters have been sent out. The recipients remain gagged and can never speak about their experience, under threat of a five-year prison sentence. They can never describe the scope and nature of the information they give to the FBI.

...The act was reauthorized without significant change to the nondisclosure provision, which prevents anyone who receives an national security letter from talking about the experience, to anyone, ever.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted the first set (1,138 pages) of documents on the FBI's misuse of national security letter authority that they received from a freedom of information act request. The first of many sets of documents can be viewed here. EFF will release more documents next month and periodically over the coming months as they receive them. Read the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General report revealing extensive misuse of NSLs ("A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Use of National Security Letters" [PDF]) that led to the EFF's FOIA request.

• More than 350 pages describing investigative missteps that the FBI considered disclosing to the Intelligence Oversight Board, which receives reports on intelligence gathering activities that violate guidelines, laws, or presidential orders. (See Parts 4, 5, and 6 of the FOIA documents, all PDFs.) These pages detail numerous NSL-related blunders -- most often agents making typographical errors that resulted in receipt of information about the wrong people, and ISPs handing over too much (or wrong) data to the FBI. The Bureau usually did not refer these matters to the Intelligence Oversight Board, often chalking them up to administrative errors or third-party mistakes. The FBI also decided against opening internal investigations into many of the incidents.
• The FOIA documents show, however, that several cases were forwarded to the Board between April 2005 and February 2007. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was copied on these referrals, despite congressional testimony in April 2005 that he was unaware of any civil liberties violations arising from the PATRIOT Act, and a March 2007 speech in which he claimed to be “upset” and "concerned" by the inspector general's findings.
• Copies of more than 60 "exigent letters" [PDF] sent by FBI headquarters to three telecomunications companies. The inspector general determined that the FBI's use of these short form letters, which cryptically asked for telephone records because of unspecified "exigent circumstances," circumvented the law and violated FBI guidelines and policies.
• A government proposal [PDF] to expand the NSL provision of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act written after the inspector general's report was released.
• Various model NSLs, which give us a good sense of what the demands look like, and memos providing guidance on proper use of NSL authority. (See Parts 1 and 2 of the FOIA documents, both PDFs.)

3 in one day! I hope this makes up for the fact that we don't have a guest blogger this month. But rest assured, we've got someone in line for August!

[Thanks BoingBoing!]

New online is the, "Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Special Report, March 2007." The document comes from the Inspector General at the U.S. Dept. of Justice.

The HTML version is here. PDF version (14 pages) here.