The legal challenge from two prominent advocacy groups has forced FBI to with draw its secret request for information about a user of the Internet Archive digital library.
The case dates to last year but only became public on Wednesday.
It was brought by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the archive.org, dates to last year but only became public on Wednesday because the type of request involved, known as a national security letter (NSL), is accompanied by a gag order that forbids the recipient from disclosing its existence or discussing it with anyone except his attorneys, who are also gagged. As a result of a settlement, the FBI agreed to withdraw the national security letter and to lift the gag order.
The situation with the Internet Archive began last November, when the FBI served founder Brewster Kahle with an NSL (PDF) seeking an unspecified individual’s name, address, and “any electronic communication transactional records” (i.e., not the content of communications, but logs of activity) pertaining to the user. Kahle, who is an EFF board member, believed the request was overbroad and decided to challenge the query in court, handing over only publicly available documents in the mean time.
Kahle said in a statement:
The free flow of information is at the heart of every library’s work. That’s why Congress passed a law limiting the FBI’s power to issue NSLs to America’s libraries. While it’s never easy standing up to the government–particularly when I was barred from discussing it with anyone–I knew I had to challenge something that was clearly wrong.
The Internet Archive, founded in 1996, is a repository for archived Web sites, public domain books, concert recordings, and films, among other things. It has about half a million registered patrons and, according to the EFF, does not collect IP addresses of those who submit items to the collections or of those who read, view, or listen to its collections.
Attorneys for Kahle said they considered the settlement a great victory. But they again voiced concern that untold numbers of improper NSLs have gone unchallenged because of their secretive nature.
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