The Department of Defense and the CIA have been sending National Security Letters to credit card and banking companies asking that they release personal information on Americans, according to a report published Sunday in The New York Times. Since the September 11th terrorist attacks, the FBI has been sending thousands of their own National Security Letters each year. But this is the first news that the military and CIA are also involved. Earlier today, FSRN spoke to Caroline Fredrickson, Director of Washington, DC legislative office of the ACLU. FSRN asked Fredrickson about the extent of the military and CIA’s use of these letters.

CF: Well, the extent is hard to gauge right now because we all know is really what we’ve read in the Times, similar to what we read last year about the National Security Agency spying. Until Congress really gets into it and finds out, all we have to go on is that hundreds, perhaps thousands of Americans have been looked at with no real legal basis by our government.

FSRN: In the Times Article, military officials said the 1978 Right to Financial Privacy Act and the Patriot Act give them the legal authority to issue National Security Letters. Do you think they’re protected by the law, or is this a broad interpretation of the law?

CF: It’s clearly a broad interpretation of the law. And I think even in the Times article, there are experts on that particular privacy law who said this beyond what they expected to see in the law. As far as the PATRIOT Act goes, I don’t think anyone thought the Pentagon and CIA were going to be spying on Americans with these National Security Letters. Our lawyers are looking at it carefully to see if there’s actually been a clear legal violation, but even without that, this is a very broad reading of the law.

FSRN: The demands in these letters are reportedly non-compulsory. But banks and financial institutions have reportedly been turning over information. Is it legal for them to do this?

CF: Again, our lawyers are looking into it. But the fact of the matter is when CIA or the Pentagon agents show up at your door or sends you a letter saying you have to turn records over, people turn them over. That’s just the fact of the matter. Nobody wants to tango with those types of agencies, particularly when they claim it’s in the name of national security. So I think there’s got be a very thorough investigation by Congress.

FSRN: Related to that, is it your understanding that the CIA and Military needs warrants to obtain this personal banking and telephone data?

CF: That’s the beauty of a National Security Letter. All it has to be quote “relevant” to an ongoing investigation. There is no body else besides the agency internally, besides an agent, who determines if it meets that standard of relevancy. And we’ve seen with the FBI when individual agents issue National Security Letters, they’ve sent tens of thousands of out, that have potentially swept up millions of people’s records. It’s really mind boggling what they’re getting away with.

CF: Could you explain why it’s potentially dangerous for the military or CIA to gather intelligence on Americans.

FSRN: It’s a fundamental aspect of democracy that military and law enforcement functions are separated and we do that for a very basic reason, we do that so that our military doesn’t become a controlling force in our society. Here we have this mission creep, where the Pentagon and the CIA are starting to look at what’s going on American soil and that is completely outside their authority and really sends this country in a bad direction.

Caroline Fredrickson, Director of Washington, DC legislative office of the ACLU.