Despite previous promises to protect Americans’ privacy, including Internet privacy, the Obama administration wants to give the FBI more power to access e-mail records, according to the Washington Post.

The broadened authority would come through expansion of national security letters, or NSLs. NSLs are an end-run avoiding the usual judicial process of going before a judge to obtain a search warrant. They are simply issued by an FBI field office.

NSLs are also different from a warrant in that they are secret. The recipient of an NSL — an Internet Service provider such as Verizon or Fairpoint, for example — may not disclose to anyone that the government has asked for someone’s personal data.

The Internet traffic data being sought is addresses someone e-mails, dates and times of e-mails, and possibly also browser history. Content of e-mails would, supposedly, remain off-limits without a warrant.

The authority is analogous to the government claiming a right to look into your postal mailbox every day to see what mail you’re sending and receiving.

NSLs have been widely criticized, but have become a common FBI tool. The Post story notes that the Department of Justice issued 192,500 NSLs from 2003 to 2006. Yet a 2007 report by the inspector general found “numerous possible violations of FBI regulations, including the issuance of NSLs without having an approved investigation to justify the request.”

Read the Washington Post article.