Google (News - Alert) continues to reject the FBI’s demand to access confidential user data without a warrant. The search-engine giant claims that such requests are illegal and violate customers' privacy rights. This has prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to file a lawsuit against Google in New York’s federal court in Manhattan, allowing federal agents to gain warrantless access to user records, reports CNET.

As per the report, the suit defends the bureau’s use of controversial National Security Letters (NSL) act, a secret electronic data-gathering technique that does not require a judge's approval. Recently, in an unrelated court case, the NSL was declared unconstitutional, wrote CNET’s chief political correspondent Declan McCullagh

The report indicates that U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan has been assigned to the New York case, but proceedings were sealed. According to the CNET report, the use of NSLs is controversial because it gags the recipient. In addition, there is no limit on the amount of data a single NSL can demand. The report suggests that NSL is only supposed to be used in national security investigations, and not routine criminal probes.

According to CNET, an inspector general's report found that the FBI made 50,000 NSL requests in 2006, and 97 percent of those included mandatory gag orders. While NSLs can demand user profile information, the law prohibits obtaining the text of e-mail messages or most log files, wrote McCullagh.  

Interestingly, Google has already had been challenging the NSLs in a California court long before the Justice Department’s New York litigation. Per CNET’s report, the search engine giant is asking U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco to throw out the New York NSL case. However, the District Judge has declined the request, but said she’d revisit the topic, if necessary.

Another company filing a lawsuit against NSL is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). On behalf of an unnamed telecommunications company, EFF’s legal director Cindy Cohn has filed her own lawsuit challenging NSL, reports UPI.com. As per the report, it is not clear to Cohn why Google has decided to take on the Justice Department at this point.  Cohn said, "My instinct tells me that Google doesn't pick a fight with the government easily. There's probably something going on here that's different from a run-of-the-mill NSL.”