According to a report in the Washington Post, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has greatly expanded its use of “National Security Letters” to request information on private citizens. While National Security Letters had their origin in the 1970s as a tool in espionage and terrorism investigations and were narrow exceptions in consumer privacy laws that allowed the FBI to review customer records of suspected foreign agents, their use has greatly expanded since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act. Since the PATRIOT Act when into law in 2001, the number of National Security Letters issued has increased from 300 to 30,000 annually. The records requested include information about where people have traveled, how they spend money, where they shop, what they search for online, and who they call or email at work. In one example, the FBI ordered private businesses in Las Vegas to provide detailed information about every hotel guest in the city, every person who rented a car, every lease on a storage space, and every airline passenger who landed in the city.

Under National Security Letter rules, anyone that receives a letter is under a permanent “gag order” and is prohibited from telling anyone that the FBI requested records.