Gov't seeks more than 1,700 secret warrants
  • The Justice Department made 1,745 requests to a secret court for authority to wiretap or search for evidence in terrorism and espionage investigations last year.

    That's according to an April 30 letter to the Senate.

    The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court meets in secret to hear classified evidence from government attorneys. The court did not reject any of the requests, though judges did require some modifications.

    It's an increase over 2010, when the department made 1,579 requests.

    The FBI also made 16,511 national security letter requests for information, regarding 7,201 people, last year. The letters allow officials to collect virtually unlimited kinds of sensitive, private information like financial and phone records.


 Originally Posted By: the G-man

As I said back in 2005 and 2009, if a president, including a democrat, follows the law and uses the law to go after terrorists (as opposed to harassing political opponents), I don't see a problem with it.

However, I'm still waiting for the people...who went ape over Bush's "wiretapping" to say "boo" about Obama going even further than his predecessor did.