Credo Mobile reveals FBI sought customers’ phone records with NSL

In a rare disclosure of previously secret documents, San Francisco telecom Credo Mobile has identified itself as the recipient of two FBI national security letters demanding customer phone records.

The letters require phone companies, banks and other record-keepers to disclose documents on patrons whom the government considers relevant to a national security investigation.

The disclosure resulted from a suit the company filed in 2013 contesting the secrecy requirement — only the second legal challenge of its kind since the FBI’s use of the letters was greatly expanded by the USA Patriot Act of 2001, the company’s lawyers said.

In a ruling this March, Illston said the law meets constitutional standards by allowing judges to decide whether there is a reasonable likelihood that disclosure would cause harm.

“These letters, and the gag orders that came with them, infringed our free-speech rights, blocking us from talking to our (customers) about them or discussing our experience while lawmakers debated NSL reform,” Ray Morris, Credo’s chief executive, said in a statement.