US Judge Orders Google to Turn Over Data to FBI
A US judge has ruled that Google Inc must comply with the FBI’s warrantless demands for customer data, rejecting the company’s argument that the government’s practice of issuing such requests to telecommunication companies, Internet service providers, banks and others is unconstitutional and unnecessary.
FBI counter-terrorism agents began issuing the secret, so-called national security letters, which don’t require a judge’s approval, after Congress passed the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The letters are used to collect unlimited kinds of sensitive, private information such as financial and phone records, and they have prompted complaints of government privacy violations in the name of national security.
US District Court Judge Susan Illston on Tuesday ordered Google to comply with the demands, even though she found the letters unconstitutional in March in a separate case filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In that case, she found that the FBI’s demand that recipients refrain from telling anyone — including customers — that they had received the letters was a violation of free speech rights.
The order in the Google case obtained by The Associated Press on Friday