Recently released documents revealed that the FBI has secretly required vast amounts of financial and consumer information on Americans from America’s largest credit bureaus.
The FBI regularly uses these powers of attorney, known as national security letters, to compel credit giants to turn over non-content information, such as purchase and location records, that the agency deems necessary in national security investigations. But these letters have no judicial oversight and are usually presented with a gag order, preventing the recipient from disclosing the claim to someone else, including the purpose of the letter.
Only a few tech companies, including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, have disclosed that they have ever received one or more national security letters. Since the law changed in 2015 in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations that revealed the scope of the U.S. government’s surveillance operations, beneficiaries have been allowed to petition the FBI to release itself from the provisions of gag and post the letters with redactions.
Tech companies have used “transparency reports” to inform their users of government demands for their data. But other big data collectors, like credit bureaus, have not fully released their numbers.
Three lawmakers, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Elizabeth Warren, and Republican Senator Rand Paul, have sent letters to Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, expressing their “alarm” as to why the credit giants have not disclosed the number of government demands for the consumer. data they receive.
“Because your company has so much potentially sensitive data from so many Americans and collects this information without obtaining the consent of these people, you have a responsibility to be transparent about how you handle that data,” the letters say. “Unfortunately, your company has not provided information to policymakers or the public about the type or number of disclosures it has made to the FBI.”
Spokesmen for Equifax, Experian and TransUnion did not respond to a request for comment outside of business hours.
It is not known how many national security letters were issued to credit bureaus since the powers of attorney became law in 2001. The New York Times said that national security letters to credit bureaus were a “small but telling fraction. “of the general half. millions of FBI lawsuits made to date.
Other banks and financial institutions, as well as universities, cell phone services and internet providers, were the targets of national security letters, the documents revealed.
Senators have given the agencies until December 27 to reveal the number of lawsuits each has received.
