The Justice Department made 1,745 requests to a secret court for authority to wiretap or search for evidence in terrorism and espionage investigations last year.
That's according to an April 30 letter to the Senate.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court meets in secret to hear classified evidence from government attorneys. The court did not reject any of the requests, though judges did require some modifications.
It's an increase over 2010, when the department made 1,579 requests.
The FBI also made 16,511 national security letter requests for information, regarding 7,201 people, last year. The letters allow officials to collect virtually unlimited kinds of sensitive, private information like financial and phone records.
That's down from 2010, when 24,287 requests for information regarding 14,212 people were made.
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