WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal judge ordered speedy processing for public release of records detailing the FBI’s use and abuse of its power to obtain Americans’ personal data in terror and spy investigations.

The decision Friday by Federal District Judge John D. Bates set a July 5 deadline for documents about FBI national security letters to be handed over by the Justice Department to a San Francisco-based technology-rights group.

An estimated 100,000 pages of records are covered by the order.

Judge Bates ruled that if the Justice Department finds documents in that group that it believes should not be made public, it must explain why to him and to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which sought the documents. Bates set a target date of Aug. 24 for resolving any disputes over documents the government wants to keep secret.

The foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the records earlier this year after Justice Department auditors found the FBI had improperly, and in some cases illegally, misused the national security letters. This week, the FBI said its own audit has since identified more than 1,000 possible violations since 2002.

“It’s time for someone outside the Justice Department to look into the FBI’s abuse of investigative power,” said Marcia Hofmann, a foundation attorney. “The release of these documents will help both Congress and the public to better understand the scope of this scandal.”

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said, “We’re aware of the order and we’re reviewing it.”

Under the Patriot Act, national security letters give the FBI authority to bypass court approval to demand that telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus and other businesses produce personal records about their customers or subscribers.

The foundation’s lawsuit seeks government records related to the process of issuing national security letters and whether or not they were abused. It does not ask for the corporate records containing Americans’ personal information that private firms turned over to the FBI.

The FBI issues tens of thousands of national security letters annually, including an estimated 19,000 in 2005 alone, seeking 47,000 records. The majority of the abuses uncovered by FBI auditors appear to have been made by companies that gave more information than investigators sought, officials have said. But the Justice Department inspector general also found instances where FBI agents violated the law and rules governing such requests.

Draft guidelines made public earlier this week sternly remind FBI agents to carefully follow the rules governing the national security letters. They caution agents to protect privacy rights by reviewing all data before it is transferred into FBI databases to make sure that only the information specifically requested is used. Any irrelevant or extra material received will be locked away from investigators and, potentially, returned or destroyed.