Security News > 2011 > May > FBI fights to protect ISPs that snoop on their customers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/12/fbi_protects_isps/ By Dan Goodin in San Francisco The Register 12th May 2011 The FBI has finally come clean on the real reason it doesn't want to name phone and internet service providers that participate in a sweeping surveillance program that taps international communications without a warrant: Customers would get mad and dump or sue the providers. This rare piece of honesty came in a recently filed court declaration (PDF) from a top FBI official arguing why the agency shouldn't have to supply the names in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. âSpecifically, these businesses would be substantially harmed if their customers knew that they were furnishing information to the FBI,â David M. Hardy wrote. âThe stigma of working with the FBI would cause customers to cancel the companies' services and file civil actions to prevent further disclosure of subscriber information. Therefore, the FBI has properly withheld this information.â Under recent changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, government intelligence officials received authority to tap American's international communications with little judicial oversight. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on constitutional grounds and later filed a FOIA request seeking additional details. Feds so far have released only a âfew hundred pages of heavily redacted documents.â [...]