WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Journalists’ telephone records are available to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents with a handful of signatures from agency officials and no court involvement, according to classified records obtained by The Intercept.
"The rules stipulate that obtaining a journalist’s records with a National Security Letter (or NSL) requires the sign-off of the FBI’s general counsel and the executive assistant director of the bureau’s National Security Branch, in addition to the regular chain of approval," the report said.
The regulations are slightly more complex if the FBI is attempting to identify a reporter’s confidential sources in a leak investigation, the report noted.
Neither the reporter nor the news organization needs to be notified, according to the report.
The report indicates the new rules took effect in October 2013, about five months after the FBI acknowledged that its agents had obtained phone records of reporters from Fox News and other media outlets.
But news reports at the time indicated that court orders were involved in accessing the reporters’ records.
