Friday, September 07, 2007

Judge Voids Portion of Patriot Act

The New York Times reports:

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.

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.”

Let's see ... one section down, how many more to go?

4 comments:

Fran said...

Oh how blurry go the lines between what is right or wrong.

Unreal - this country is unreal.

Dr. Zaius said...

I want to say too little too late, but I'll take what I an get.

Fran said...

I was just back to forward this post to another friend and I see Dr. Z's comment.

Ah, it is never too late. We must chip away and take back our freedom. Those blurry lines and bad decisions need to go away.

BAC said...

I agree with all of the above!


BAC