New FBI Spy

[nobody@tjava.com (Anonymous)]

Wall Street Journal, 21 March 1996

New FBI Access To Credit Files Raises Concern

By Vanessa O'Connell

Consumer-rights advocates are sounding alarms about a new
law giving the Federal Bureau of Investigation easier
access to credit-report information.

The little-noticed law enacted in January as part of the
Intelligence Authorization Act of 1996, allows FBI
officials to obtain key information from a person's
credit file without seeking a judge's permission.

Investigators still need a court order or a federal
grand jury subpoena to view someone's full credit report.

But they can get basic information with only written
authorization from the head of the FBI or his designee if
there's reason to suspect a person is a spy or terrorist
or has had contact with one. The basic information
available under the new law includes a person's
employment history, addresses, and a list of lenders and
other financial institutions with which the person has or
had relationships.

To avoid tipping off suspects to an investigation, the
new law also requires credit bureaus to keep secret any
FBI request to review a credit report.

Privacy and civil-rights experts say the law raises
numerous privacy concerns and leaves individuals
vulnerable. "The court-order warrant procedure is a major
protection of individual rights and it ought not be
suspended," said Alan F. Westin, professor of public law
and government at Columbia University.

Gregory Nojeim, legislative counsel for the American
Civil Liberties Union, complained that "all the FBI would
have to do is make a secret letter request to a credit
bureau based on secret FBI determinations."

"It's appalling," said David Banisar, a policy analyst at
the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington
nonprofit public-interest group promoting better privacy
laws.

In the past, the FBI sometimes pulled credit reports in
criminal cases, but rarely looked at the credit files of
individuals it was secretly investigating as suspected
spies or terrorists. Before the new law, an FBI request
for credit information had to be listed in an
individual's file along with the names of lenders or
potential employers that asked to review the report.

Because FBI officials can now peek at credit reports in
secret, they're more likely to use the files to nab
suspected spies and terrorists, a Justice Department
official said. At the same time, the official said, it is
less likely that FBI agents will go to the trouble of
obtaining a person's full credit record, including the
status of any current accounts.

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