At least temporarily, as the government must (according to the court, anyway) stop probing our anal canals with their microscopes:
"Judge rules against FBI data-gathering tool; Patriot Act device allows US to seize records secretly" by Charlie Savage/Boston Globe September 7, 2007
WASHINGTON - A federal district judge yesterday struck down a key section of the USA Patriot Act that allows the FBI to secretly seize personal records about customers from Internet service providers, phone companies, banks, libraries, and other businesses without a judge's permission.
The Patriot Act provision allowed investigators, at their own discretion, to issue a type of administrative subpoena known as a "National Security Letter" to businesses as part of an inquiry into suspected spies or terrorists. The company would then have to turn over the requested records, and its employees would be banned from telling anyone about the subpoena.
Because US District Court Judge Victor Marrero gave the government 90 days to appeal his order, the FBI does not have to stop issuing National Security Letters immediately.
[I doubt they would stop whatever they are doing anyway, even if a court ordered it!]
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the Bush administration is considering whether to appeal: "We are reviewing the decision and considering our options at this time."
[What options?
It is a COURT RULING, shitters! RESPECT IT!]
Marrero, in his 103-page ruling:
"[The Patriot Act provision on National Security Letters] violates both the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers because it gags recipients of the subpoenas and doesn't provide adequate court oversight. In light of the seriousness of the potential intrusion into the individual's personal affairs and the significant possibility of a chilling effect on speech and association - particularly of expression that is critical of the government or its policies - a compelling need exists to ensure that the use of National Security Letters is subject to the safeguards of public accountability, checks and balances, and separation of powers that our Constitution prescribes."
[In other words, the Illegal Eavesdropping Program is AGAINST the LAW!!!!!]
Melissa Goodman, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, praised the ruling for upholding checks and balances on the government's police powers. The ACLU sued the government on behalf of an unnamed recipient of a National Security Letter who decided to challenge it rather than to comply with it. The Washington Post has reported that the recipient was a library in Connecticut.
Goodman said:
"As the court recognized, there must be real, meaningful judicial checks on the exercise of executive power. Without oversight, there is nothing to stop the government from engaging in broad fishing expeditions, or targeting people for the wrong reasons, and then gagging Americans from ever speaking out against potential abuses of this intrusive surveillance power."
[In other words, a POLICE STATE!!!!]
The government has used National Security Letters since a 1986 law created them, but they were rare. The Patriot Act, which Congress passed weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made it much easier for the government to issue such subpoenas.
[Yup, everything traces back to 9/11, which is why the TRUTH about 9/11 is the fulcrum upon which the survival of this world depends]
Since then, National Security Letters have become one of the FBI's most widely used investigative tools. In 2005, the FBI issued more than 19,000 letters seeking roughly 47,000 pieces of information.
[That's a lot of mail going out!]
As the government's use of National Security Letters has undergone exponential growth, the device has also generated controversy. Last March, the Justice Department's inspector general reported widespread problems with the FBI's use of the letters - including several instances in which FBI agents obtained information illegally.
[And therfore, the offenses are IMPEACHABLE!!!!!
IMPEACH!! IMPEACH!!! IMPEACH!!!!!]
Analyzing a sample of 293 National Security Letters issued by the bureau between 2003 and 2005, the inspector general found 22 possible breaches of regulations. The mistakes included using the letters to obtain information beyond what the law authorized, but the report was vague.
The FBI has announced new regulations to ensure agents use the National Security Letters properly. But the district court ruling, if it stands, would make the controls irrelevant because the Justice Department would instead have to get permission from a judge or a grand jury if it wanted to obtain such records for an investigation."
[The problem for me is lurking in the background on all this is Bush's Compliant Court -- the Supreme Court.
Maybe blaming Chief Justice Roberts for the Meiers fiasco will hurt him a bit up there!]
"Judge Voids F.B.I. Tool Granted by Patriot Act" by ADAM LIPTAK
A federal judge yesterday struck down the parts of the recently revised USA Patriot Act that authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use informal secret demands called national security letters to compel companies to provide customer records.
The law allowed the F.B.I. not only to force communications companies, including telephone and Internet providers, to turn over the records without court authorization, but also to forbid the companies to tell the customers or anyone else what they had done. Under the law, enacted last year, the ability of the courts to review challenges to the ban on disclosures was quite limited.
[And now Bush wants to give the media companies immunity from law suits!
Does it ever end?]
The judge, Victor Marrero of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, ruled that the measure violated the First Amendment and the separation of powers guarantee.
Judge Marrero said he feared that the law could be the first step in a series of intrusions into the judiciary’s role that would be “the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.”
[Sort of like a POLICE STATE?]
According to a report from the Justice Department’s inspector general in March, the F.B.I. issued about 143,000 requests through national security letters from 2003 to 2005. The report found that the bureau had often used the letters improperly and sometimes illegally.
Judge Marrero wrote: "[Recipients of the letters] remain effectively barred from engaging in any discussion regarding their experiences and opinions related to the government’s use of the letters."
Indeed, the very identity of the Internet service provider that brought this case remains secret.
The judge said the F.B.I. might be entitled to prohibit disclosures for a limited time but afterward “must bear the burden of going to court to suppress the speech.” Putting that burden on recipients of the letters, he said, violates the First Amendment.
The decision found that the secrecy requirement was so intertwined with the rest of the provision concerning national security letters that the entire provision was unconstitutional.
[You HEAR that, law-breaking government?!]
Judge Marrero used his strongest language and evocative historical analogies in criticizing the aspect of the new law that imposed restrictions on the courts’ ability to review the F.B.I.’s determinations.
Judge Marrero, pointing to discredited Supreme Court decisions endorsing the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II and racially segregated railroad cars in the 19th century, wrote:
“When the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of privacy. The only thing left of the judiciary’s function for those Americans in that experience was a symbolic act: to sing a requiem and lower the flag on the Bill of Rights.”
[I like this judge! What an intelligent and eloquent man!]
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the Internet company, said Judge Marrero had confirmed a bedrock principle.
Jameel Jaffer, an A.C.L.U. lawyer: “A statute that allows the F.B.I. to silence people without meaningful judicial oversight is unconstitutional."
