House Democrats Move to Limit Domestic Data Gathering

As the Senate deadlocked yesterday on renewal of the USA Patriot Act, House Democrats introduced a bill to impose sharp new restrictions on a tool of FBI domestic surveillance that has grown exponentially in use since the Patriot Act became law.

All nine Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence signed on as co-sponsors. The committee's ranking Democrat, Jane Harman (Calif.), said the bill had its origins in a Nov. 6 article in The Washington Post disclosing that the FBI has issued tens of thousands of the secret information demands. Harman said in a statement that the national security letters -- most of which gather records of U.S. citizens and residents who are suspected of no specific wrongdoing -- receive "virtually nonexistent congressional oversight."

The bill would restore the law's previous requirement that the FBI show a specific connection to a terrorist or foreign power before demanding an individual's telephone, e-mail or financial records. The bill would also require that national security letters, for the first time, be approved in advance by a judge or federal magistrate. Until now, senior FBI officials have been empowered to issue the letters.

-- Barton Gellman