16-16067, 16-16081, and 16-16082, July 17, 2017. History The oldest NSL provisions were created in 1978 as a little-used investigative tool in terrorist and espionage investigations to obtain financial records. Under the Right to Financial Privacy Act (RFPA), part of the Financial Institutions Regulatory and Interest Rate Control Act of 1978, the FBI could obtain the records only if the FBI first demonstrated the target was a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. Compliance by the recipient of the NSL was voluntary and state laws for consumer privacy often allowed financial institutions to reject the requests. In 1986, Congress amended RFPA to allow the government to request disclosure of the requested information. In 1986, Congress passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), part of the Stored Communications Act, which created provisions similar to the RFPA that allowed the FBI to issue NSLs. Still, neither RFPA or ECPA included penalties for failure to comply with the NSL. A 1993 amendment removed the restriction regarding "foreign powers," thereby allowing NSLs to request information concerning persons who are not the direct subject of the investigation but who may have information relevant to it. In March 2006, the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act specifically allowed for judicial review of NSLs. A federal judge could repeal or modify an NSL if the court found the request for information was "unreasonable, oppressive, or otherwise unlawful." The March 2006 changes also weakened the nondisclosure provision the government could include in an NSL. The court could repeal the nondisclosure provision if it found it had been made in bad faith. Other 2006 amendments to the law allowed the recipient of an NSL to inform their attorney about the NSL and the government had to rely on the courts to enforce compliance with an NSL. PATRIOT Act Section 505 of the USA PATRIOT Act (2001) allowed the use of the NSLs when seeking information "relevant" in authorized national security investigations to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities. The act also provided the Department of Defense when conducting a law enforcement investigation, counterintelligence inquiry, or security determination. The Central Intelligence Agency has also allegedly issued NSLs. The Patriot Act reauthorization statutes passed during the 109th Congress added potential penalties for failure to comply with an NSL or disclosing an NSL if the NSL included a nondisclosure provision. The PATRIOT Act increased the number of