n July 2005, George Christian got a call from an employee he supervised. An FBI agent had called to ask who could receive service of a national security letter addressed to the Library Connection, a nonprofit consortium that provides computer services to twenty-six Connecticut libraries. As executive director, Christian was responsible for the organization's legal affairs. The FBI was told that the letter should be directed to him.

The following week two FBI agents showed up at Christian's office in Hartford. He was handed a letter demanding electronic records that would determine who had used a library computer between 4 and 4:45 p.m. on a specific day six months earlier. Christian's background is in information technology. "I told the agent he was out of luck," Christian said. "When a computer is turned on, a router assigns it to an IP address, and the routers use address translation to hide the computer behind it—if only to make hacking more difficult." The specific facts couldn't be made available unless all the information on every library patron was turned over to the FBI.

Agent Aram Crandall told Christian to pull the information together and comply with the demand stated in the letter. Christian was the victim of a scandal in which hundreds of FBI agents were taking liberties with the civil liberties of hundreds of thousands of American citizens.

The FBI's abuse of its expanded post 9-11 authority to issue national security letters is one of the Bush administration's scandals that haven't quite caught on. The story lacks what journalists call "legs" because there is almost no one to explain what actually happens when an FBI agent carrying a national security letter knocks at your door.

MEET JOHN DOE—George Christian gives the story legs. He was one of five individuals who have refused to comply with a national security letter demand for documents or information: four from the Library Connection and a man known as "John Doe New York," who also challenged his national security letter. Although the FBI has dropped the demand for information about one of his clients, three years later John Doe New York remains gagged. If he reveals that he received a national security letter, or mentions what the government wanted, he faces a prison term. John Doe New York is not talking. But George Christian is. He beat the odds and the system. He has a lot to say.

While two FBI agents waited in Christian's office, he read a paragraph of his national security letter, which cited a statute and certified that the information the agent requested was "relevant to an authorized investigation against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, and that such an investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely on the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States."

Christian had never heard of a national security letter. By his calendar the date was July 8; the letter was dated May 19. Almost a week had passed since the FBI had called his office. "This didn't look like the FBI was in hot pursuit of anyone," Christian said. The letter wasn't addressed to him, but to the employee the FBI initially contacted. Its third paragraph prohibited the recipient from "disclosing to any person that the FBI has sought or obtained access or information to records under these provisions."

"I told the agent I didn't think the statute was constitutional," he said. "And that I was going to discuss it with my attorney." Christian had already decided he wasn't going to comply. He called the Library Connection's attorney, whose work is focused on keeping non-profits in compliance with federal and state law. Like him, she had never heard of a national security letter. "She had never seen those three words used together like that," Christian said. She had several law students research national security letters and the statute that authorized them and warned Christian that denying the FBI's request would entail taking on the Attorney General of the United States. Christian called the consortium's vice president, Peter Chase, and requested an emergency meeting of the Library Connection's board.

LIBRARIANS FIGHT BACK—Peter Chase is the librarian from Central Casting. Soft-spoken, dignified and earnest, he is the director of the library in Plainville, CT (pop. 12,000; 90,000 volumes). He is a ferocious defender of the privacy, and what he describes as the "intellectual rights," of his patrons. Chase never doubted that the Library Connection would refuse to comply with the FBI's request for records. What his lawyer told him strengthened his resolve.