Obama Regime And FBI Want Access To Your Internet Use, Without Court Order

From A Charging Elephant:

Post-American President: Obama Wants FBI Access to Records of Your Internet Activity


July 29, 2010 · 2 Comments

Pamela Geller



Atlas Shrugs



Here again, more evidence of what has been meticulously documented in my just-released book (written with Robert Spencer) The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America — Obama’s war on free speech.



This is an ongoing campaign being waged here at home (ie hate speech) and in the UN (Obama co-sponsored a resolution with Egypt to restrict free speech and make “defaming Islam” a crime).







If Bush tried to pull this subversive act, he would have been pilloried.



White House proposal would ease FBI access to records of Internet activity Washington Post



The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual’s Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.





The administration wants to add just four words — “electronic communication transactional records” — to a list of items that the law says the FBI may demand without a judge’s approval. Government lawyers say this category of information includes the 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. It does not include, the lawyers hasten to point out, the “content” of e-mail or other Internet communication.



But what officials portray as a technical clarification designed to remedy a legal ambiguity strikes industry lawyers and privacy advocates as an expansion of the power the government wields through so-called national security letters. These missives, which can be issued by an FBI field office on its own authority, require the recipient to provide the requested information and to keep the request secret. They are the mechanism the government would use to obtain the electronic records.



Stewart A. Baker, a former senior Bush administration Homeland Security official, said the proposed change would broaden the bureau’s authority. “It’ll be faster and easier to get the data,” said Baker, who practices national security and surveillance law. “And for some Internet providers, it’ll mean giving a lot more information to the FBI in response to an NSL.”