The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks -- and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond.
The WashPost has a very good feature on National Security Letters here.
