[Advocacy Advisors] National Security Letters served on individuals

Mon Aug 5 01:55:03 UTC 2013

Luis,

Thank you for your very thoughtful reply. I am far more interested in
preventing our readers from investigation because of their whims
of curiosity than in frustrating the NSA or alerting the community to
surveillance.

Are Foundation employees served as individuals allowed to talk to you about
them? If so, are you allowed to talk with your colleagues in the legal
department about the letters?

Best regards,
James Salsman

On Sunday, August 4, 2013, Luis Villa wrote:

>
> On Fri, Aug 2, 2013 at 3:37 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'jsalsman at gmail.com');>
> > wrote:
>
>> Luis,
>>
>> Would it be legal to adopt a policy that any individual served with a
>> National Security Letter must immediately request a transfer to a
>> department headed by a different C-level officer?
>>
>> If so, is the Foundation willing to adopt such a policy?
>>
> Hi, James-
>
> It's not clear to me what the purpose of such a policy would be. I can
> think of two possible goals, neither of which really work.
>
> If the goal is "frustrate the purpose of the NSL by depriving the
> recipient of the authority to respond to the NSL", then the FBI simply
> continues to send NSLs to whoever we hire as a replacement, until we have
> no one left in ops. At that point, they start working their way up the
> chain and we're left with (1) a crippled organization and (2) eventually a
> letter to the ED, who is legally compelled to make the thing happen anyway.
> Or, if the policy is public, they just start with the ED.
>
> If the goal is "alert the community that NSLs are being sent" (or if that
> alerting happens accidentally, as a result of public knowledge of the
> policy, + goal #1) then that's probably a violation of the relevant law,
> which allows disclosure only to "those to whom such disclosure is necessary
> to comply with the request or an attorney to obtain legal advice or legal
> assistance with respect to the request" (18 USC 2709(c)(1),
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2709).
>
> Note that the statute was updated a few years back to make it quite clear
> that you're allowed to talk to your lawyer about these when you get them,
> recent disclosed letters appear to refer clearly to that permission, and if
> our legal department got one, we'd be eager to fight. (That said, it does
> probably make sense to remind our employers that if they get an NSL, they
> are clearly entitled to speak to LCA; we'll look into how best to do that.)
>
> Luis
>
>
>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Luis Villa
> Deputy General Counsel
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 415.839.6885 ext. 6810
>
> NOTICE: *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you
> have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the
> mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical
> reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
> members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity.*
>
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