◆ SpookStack

The Patriot Act reauthorization put in a number of civil hberties protections relative lo national security letters because we knew that there were problems afoot and decided that even though NSLs were not a part of the Patriot Act, thal they needed to have civil liberties protections, And I am proud of that work that this committee did, and eventually found its ways into the Patriot Act reauthorization act which was signed by the president in March of last year. One of the things, Ms. Caproni, that I am really concerned about is that the Justice Department, and the FBI in particular, have come to the Congress repeatedly over the last dozen years asking for administrative subpoena authority, meaning that subpoenas could be issued without judicial supervision. SENSENBRENNER: This Congress has repeatedly rejected each and every one of those requests. Now, a national security letter is kind of like an administrative subpoena, although it is limited to the type of information that can be obtained. I'd like to know from both of the witnesses whether the FBI simply turned around and used NSLs to get huge amounts of information, after Congress said no again to administrative subpoena authority. CAPRONI: No, we didn't. National security letters are always focused on a particular case. There's no bulk collection via national security letters. And while our congressional reporting numbers are off, as Mr. Fine correctly found, they are not off by an order of magnitude. That is, that we reported that we collected data on less than 20,000 people a year. While (hat number may go up, it’s not going to go up to above, you know, 200,000. SENSENBRENNER: And how can you account for the fact that the number of NSLs that were issued before 9/11 was about 8,000-plus per year, and then it went up to 150,000? CAPRONI: I think there are... SENSENBRENNER: Do we have that many potential terrorists running around the country? If so, I'm really worried. CAPRONI: I think it's a function of two things. (CROSSTALK) CAPRONI: