ACLU Accuses Pentagon of Snooping with FBI's Help

NEW YORK — The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans' Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, the ACLU said Tuesday.

The American Civil Liberties Union based its conclusion on a review of more than 1,000 documents turned over by the Defense Department after it sued the agency last year for documents related to national security letters. The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court.

The letters are investigative tools used to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a judge's order or grand jury subpoena.

ACLU lawyer Melissa Goodman said the documents the civil rights group studied "make us incredibly concerned that the FBI and DoD might be collaborating to evade limits put on the DoD's use of NSLs."

In other allegations, the ACLU said:

— The Navy's use of the letters to demand domestic records has increased significantly since the Sept. 11 attacks.

— The military wrongly claimed its use of the letters was limited to investigating only Defense Department employees.

— The Defense Department has not kept track of how many national security letters the military issues or what information it obtained through the orders.

— The military provided misleading information to Congress and silenced letter recipients from speaking out about the records requests.