|
Main Index Search Register Login Who's Online FAQ Links | |
||
|
|
|||
|
||||
| 1 Online, 0 Active | You are not logged in | |||
|
|
Law and Order | |
|
|
|
|
All 4 posts | Subject: secret government searches unconstitutional | Please login to post | Down | |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
Jade (soccer mom) 09-30-04 11:50 No 533899 
|
|
secret government searches unconstitutional | ||||||
|
Judge strikes down secret government searches as unconstitutional Wednesday, September 29, 2004 BY LARRY NEUMEISTER ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK - Declaring that personal security is as important as national security, a judge Wednesday blocked the government from conducting secret, unchallengeable searches of Internet and telephone records as part of its fight against terrorism. The American Civil Liberties Union called the ruling a "landmark victory" against the Justice Department's post-Sept. 11 law enforcement powers. "Today's ruling is a wholesale refutation of excessive government secrecy and unchecked executive power," said ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero struck down a provision of the Patriot Act that authorizes the FBI to force Internet service providers and phone companies to turn over certain customer records. The companies are then barred from ever disclosing the search took place. In his ruling, the judge called national security of "paramount value" and said the government "must be empowered to respond promptly and effectively" to threats. But he called personal security equal in importance and "especially prized in our system of justice." Marrero said his ruling blocks the government from issuing the requests or from enforcing the non-disclosure provision "in this or any other case." But the ruling will not immediately take effect to allow for an appeal. Megan L. Gaffney, a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office in Manhattan, said the government was reviewing the decision and had no immediate comment. The judge said the law violates the Fourth Amendment because it bars or deters any judicial challenge to the government searches, and violates the First Amendment because its permanent ban on disclosure is a prior restraint on speech. He noted that the Supreme Court recently said that a "state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." "Sometimes a right, once extinguished, may be gone for good," Marrero wrote. Marrero issued his decision in favor of an Internet access firm identified in his 120-page ruling as "John Doe." He had agreed to keep the firm's identity secret to protect the FBI probe that led to the search request. Jaffer, the ACLU lawyer, said the government had turned over as part of the lawsuit a six-page document showing it had obtained Internet or telephone records dozens and possibly hundreds of times. The government was authorized to pursue communications records as part of a 1986 law. Its powers were enhanced by legislation passed after the passage of the Patriot Act in 2001. In a footnote to his ruling, Marrero cited words he had written two years ago in another case to warn that courts must apply "particular vigilance to safeguard against excess committed in the name of expediency." "The Sept. 11 cases will challenge the judiciary to do Sept. 11 justice, to rise to the moment with wisdom equal to the task, its judgments worthy of the large dimensions that define the best Sept. 11 brought out of the rest of American society." http://www.madville.com/link.php?id=78482&t=26 There's a terrorist behind every Bush. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
|
psychokitty («  »)09-30-04 20:17 No 533949 |
|
Here's another article covering the same topic | ||||||
|
Provision of Patriot Act Is Ruled Unconstitutional A method used to obtain electronic data allows for 'coercive searches,' says a judge, who grants time for an appeal. By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — A federal judge Wednesday curtailed the government's power in terrorism investigations under the USA Patriot Act, saying a widely used tool to obtain Internet and other electronic records from communications firms violated the Constitution by permitting "coercive searches" without any judicial review. The 120-page ruling, by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York, came in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of an Internet service provider that had received a form of administrative subpoena known as a national security letter. The FBI has issued hundreds of these letters since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The letters have drawn fire because they are issued without any court oversight or finding of probable cause and prohibit the recipients of the letters from ever disclosing that they have been received. Authorized by law since the mid-1980s, the letters have become more widely used since the Patriot Act gave the government greater discretion in issuing them in terrorism investigations. The Patriot Act permits widespread access to electronic communications such as basic subscriber information and call records from phone companies and e-mail and other Web-related information from Internet service providers. It does not, however, allow the government access to the actual contents of the communications. "Today's decision is a stunning victory against the John Ashcroft Justice Department in striking down one of the major surveillance portions of the USA Patriot Act," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU. The decision marks an unusual defeat for the department and other proponents of the Patriot Act, the terrorism-fighting law enacted within weeks of the 2001 hijackings and attacks that killed almost 3,000 people. The law has been criticized as compromising civil liberties and spawned considerable litigation. Until Wednesday's decision, though, only one constitutional challenge had been successful: In January, a federal judge in Los Angeles, citing the free speech provision of the 1st Amendment, ruled against the part of the act making it illegal to "give expert advice or assistance" to foreign terrorist organizations. In a report issued in July, the Justice Department contended that the act had been effective in saving lives. It noted that some provisions were instrumental in the disruption of alleged terrorist cells in upstate New York and Oregon. ACLU officials said the reasoning of Wednesday's ruling, including criticism of the government for undue secrecy, could be used to attack other provisions of the act. In a separate suit, the group is challenging a provision that gives the government wide access to business records. Like the section of the act on national security letters, that provision also strictly prohibits those receiving the demands from disclosing them publicly. The suit on national security letters was filed under seal because the ACLU feared it might be accused of violating the act's nondisclosure provision by acknowledging in open court that its client had received such a letter. The client was identified only as "John Doe" in the suit. A Justice Department spokesman said officials were reviewing the decision and declined to comment further. The ruling was stayed for 90 days to give the government time to appeal. The ruling does not prohibit the government from obtaining the information, only the means through which it obtained it in the past. In its suit, the ACLU argued that the law gave the FBI unchecked power to obtain private information and gave the recipient no opportunity to challenge the requests. In effect, the law gave the FBI alone the power to issue and enforce its own letters, the ACLU argued. The group also argued that the permanent ban on disclosing the existence of the requests, even to an attorney, was an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech that violated the 1st Amendment. The government argued that the statute implicitly afforded letter recipients the opportunity to challenge the demand for information in court, just as they could with any other subpoena. It also said the prohibition on disclosure was essential in protecting the integrity and efficacy of terrorism and counterintelligence investigations. Marrero declined to read such safeguards into the law. In practice, he said, the law operated in a way that coerced recipients into complying. "Objectively viewed, it is improbable that an FBI summons … phrased in tones sounding virtually as biblical commandment … would not be perceived with some apprehension by an ordinary person," the judge wrote. Marrero said he was also concerned that the law could result in violations of subscribers' own constitutional rights through the production of information protected by the 1st Amendment, such as e-mail or phone lists of political organizations. He said he appreciated the government's need to keep sensitive investigations under wraps, but found the "automatic, categorical and permanent scope" of the order excessive. "Secrecy's protective shield may serve not as much to secure a safe country as simply to save face," he wrote. Unlike subpoenas issued through a grand jury, administrative subpoenas are issued on the authority of an agency itself and are common among regulatory entities. The Internal Revenue Service uses them to investigate tax code violations, the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate stock fraud. But there has always been a reluctance to give this kind of power to the FBI without the involvement of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. In general, the government is allowed to obtain stored electronic communications without a customer's permission only through a subpoena or court order. A 1986 law carved out an exception in terrorism or counterintelligence cases where the target was said to be an agent of a foreign power. The Patriot Act further softened the standard so that the FBI had only to find that the information was "relevant" to an ongoing terrorism investigation. The ACLU said that although its suit challenged letters issued for electronic communications, the judge's reasoning would apply with equal force to separate provisions that authorized searches for financial and bank records as well as credit reports. "At a minimum, it calls into question the constitutionality of those provisions," said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU staff attorney. |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
|
wareami (Hive Addict) 09-30-04 22:18 No 533961 
|
|
Butt-hole...Re-Butt-hole | ||||||
 You can always count on ASScroft eh? Nothing like having bigger scumbags running the country than those running the streets. The difference...is it's easy to stop the ones from running the streets! STOP THE WOD!  Ashcroft likely to appeal Patriot ruling By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: Sep 30, 2004 Modified: Sep 30, 2004 9:15 AM SCHEVENINGEN, Netherlands (AP) - The U.S. Justice Department will probably appeal a New York district court ruling that the Patriot Act violates the U.S. constitution, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday. Ashcroft said he would study it upon his return to Washington but "it's almost a certainty it will be appealed." "We believe the act to be completely consistent with the United States constitution," he told reporters at talks with European Union officials. On Wednesday, a district judge struck down a USA Patriot Act provision allowing the FBI to gather phone and Web customer records and then barring the service providers from ever disclosing the search took place. The decision is the second time a judge has ruled unconstitutional part of the Patriot Act, a package of prosecution and surveillance tools passed shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. "There are hundreds of district court judges, and one of them has indicated that some parts of the Patriot Act, in accordance with his view, does not meet constitutional standards," he said. "We will continue in the United States to use every tool we have in the Constitution to fight terrorism." Judge Victor Marrero said the law violated the Fourth Amendment because it barred or deterred any judicial challenge to government searches, and it violated the First Amendment because its permanent ban on disclosure was a prior restraint on speech. He noted that the U.S. Supreme Court recently said that a "state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." "Sometimes a right, once extinguished, may be gone for good," Marrero wrote. President Bush has been pushing Congress to renew the Patriot Act before it expires next year, arguing that it is one of law enforcement's best tools in preventing another catastrophic terrorist attack. http://newsobserver.com/24hour/politics/story/1697370p-9487792c.html If the shoethrows fits...Ware Itout |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||||
|
wareami (Hive Addict) 10-01-04 00:52 No 533982
|
|
The Plot Thickens... | ||||||
|
YIKES! The Plot Thickens! No small wonder there eh? In addition to the ruling another article discusses some of those Publicly Named that were ordered to surrender confidential information which were the local casino operators, airlines and other companies in Las Vegas. If you were one of 350,000 visitors to LasVegas last holiday season....you've been raped of your privacy and confidential information! I'm hoping that they can be held accountable for the violations of citizens constitutional rights! Somehow...that seems like the biggest farfetched wish I'd ever had though!  Since some of the first part is redundant and found in the above articles...I'll paste the new Las Vegas info here. Thursday, September 30, 2004 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal ANTI-TERRORIST LAW: Parts of Patriot Act rejected Judge: FBI can't force casinos to release records By ROD SMITH GAMING WIRE The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the law in federal court in April, especially the provisions giving the FBI the power to demand confidential records from companies, including casinos, as part of its terrorism investigations. The challenge came in a "John Doe" case filed on behalf of an unidentified Internet company from which the FBI sought customer information. However, the only companies that were ever publicly identified as having surrendered confidential customer information under the Patriot Act are the local casino operators, airlines and other companies in Las Vegas named by the Review-Journal last winter. Executives from most Las Vegas casino companies were called to a December meeting by FBI and local law enforcement authorities where they were told to turn over customer records for an indefinite period of time. Civil liberties advocates hailed Wednesday's decision as a "landmark" victory for companies interested in protecting customer privacy. Gary Peck, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Nevada, said the decision goes precisely to the First and Fourth amendment issues raised when hotels and other businesses in Las Vegas were forced to turn over customer records. Las Vegas hotel operators and airlines serving McCarran International Airport were required by the FBI to turn over all guest and passenger names and personal information during last year's winter holiday period. Peck said the Las Vegas investigation, which rounded up records on about 350,000 holiday visitors, represented the deepest and broadest instance of FBI database mining ever reported to the ACLU. "And we have no idea how deeply the government went into the financial records of those individuals, because the investigation was conducted under the cloak of secrecy," Peck said. Hotel-casino operators said the information provided to federal officials included guest and passenger names, addresses and personal identification information, but not casino records or guest gambling information. Hotel operators said similar information was demanded by federal authorities for about six months following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. Jameel Jaffer, lead ACLU attorney in the New York case, said Wednesday's decision should encourage casino operators and other companies served with FBI demands for customer information to question the agency and challenge similar demands they believe may be unconstitutional or invade the privacy rights of customers. Jaffer said the ACLU has obtained a six-page list from the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act identifying all companies the FBI compelled to produce customer information, all of which has been blacked out. He said the broad search authority has been used in dozens, and possibly hundreds, of cases. Robert Stewart, spokesman for Caesars Entertainment, one of the gaming companies that turned over customer information, said his company has worked hard to find the right balance between protecting the privacy of customers and cooperating with federal authorities dealing with threats to national security. "These are not easy calls. In light of today's court decision, our legal department will take another look at our policy," he said. Rob Stillwell, spokesman for Boyd Gaming Corp., agreed federal demands for customer information involves a delicate balancing act. "The more discretion we have with regard to our customers' privacy, the better for us. Obviously, with this ruling just coming out today, our legal department over the next few days will be reviewing our policies," he said. MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman, however, said before his company reviews its privacy policies, the government will have to first be given a chance to appeal or amend the Patriot Act. "As for us or anyone else, we comply with the law. If the law changes, we will change accordingly," he said. Other companies, which asked not to be named because of concerns about possible retaliation from enforcement authorities, agreed demands for customer information raise difficult issues and said their policies are under review. When the casino executives were ordered to turn over the customer records last winter, many balked at the demand and requested the FBI first obtain national security letters compelling the release of the information. When they were presented with the letters, all the casino companies complied with the FBI demands but said they felt coerced to do so. The judge ruled that such national security letters, which under the authority of the Intelligence Authorization Act passed in December made court-approved subpoenas for the information unnecessary, are coercive and deter court challenges to the propriety of demands for national security information. Marreo ruled that the availability of judicial review is essential to protecting the constitutional rights of companies such as casino operators, and that the permanent ban on releasing information on the companies involved represents unconstitutional prior restraint of free speech. Jaffer said the ACLU lawsuit filed in New York was a broad challenge to the constitutionality of the Patriot Act. While Marreo called national security of "paramount value" in his decision, he said personal security is "especially prized in our system of justice," and must be given equal weight. The judge said the Patriot Act violates the Fourth Amendment because it bars or deters any judicial challenge to the government searches, and violates the First Amendment because its permanent ban on disclosure is a prior restraint on speech. He noted that the Supreme Court recently said that a "state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." In a footnote to his ruling, Marreo cited words he wrote two years ago in another case to warn that courts must apply "particular vigilance to safeguard against excess committed in the name of expediency." "The Sept. 11 cases will challenge the judiciary to do Sept. 11 justice, to rise to the moment with wisdom equal to the task, its judgments worthy of the large dimensions that define the best Sept. 11 brought out of the rest of American society." Marreo's ruling blocks the government from issuing any new requests or enforcing the non-disclosure provision "in this or any other case," pending the 90-day stay and any possible government appeals. Megan L. Gaffney, a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office in Manhattan, said the government was reviewing the decision and had no immediate comment. The ACLU's Peck said he was confident the government would lose any appeal of the ruling. The Associated Press contributed to this story. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Sep-30-Thu-2004/news/24881864.html If the shoethrows fits...Ware Itout |
||||||||
|
|
|||||||