Barr Blasts 'National Security Letters'
Former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, who now runs a civil-liberties coalition called Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, told a Senate panel Wednesday afternoon that the Justice Department inspector general's recent report on the FBI's misuse of so-called "national security letters" was "nothing short of a constitutional wake-up call."
Solutions to the problem chronicled in the report "cannot be remedied by simply tweaking the regulations, tweaking the procedures, issuing new guidelines [or] having another training session [for employees]," Barr said. Changes must occur by statute, he told the Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee.
Meaningful standards and court review as well as limitations on data retention and data sharing would help fix the problem with the secret subpoena power authorized by the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act, Barr said. "The sky is not going to fall" if reforms to the program take place, he said. Instead, the letters "will remain a very robust mechanism for the FBI and other federal agencies to employ."
Peter Swire, who served as a privacy adviser to former President Clinton, said the controversial gag order associated with the subpoenas can and should be repealed. Librarian George Christian, who was the recipient of an FBI request that was eventually dropped, agreed. He said the gag order against him was "totally unnecessary."
Suzanne Spaulding, a former assistant general counsel for the CIA, also testified. She suggested that Congress undertake a "comprehensive review of all domestic intelligent collection," including the FBI, Defense Department, National Security Agency, CIA and others. "A joint inquiry or task force could be established by Senate leadership," she said.
Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold, who chairs the subcommittee, echoed Spaudling, pointing out that "we can either choose to look at the whole picture to get an understanding or not." Read more on the hearing in Technology Daily's PM edition.
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