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Congress is wanting to reign in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who, since the Patriot Act, has been obtaining business records of individuals without a warrant and keeping those records indefinitely.

SECURITY LETTERS

The security letters, which were first used in the 1970s, allow access to people's phone and e-mail records, as well as financial data and the Internet sites they surf. The 2001 Patriot Act removed the requirement that the records sought be those of someone under suspicion.

Under the Patriot Act, 30,000 letters a year have been issued since 9/11. That's over a hundred times as many as before 9/11.