Interesting Stuff

It looks like dhalps beat me to it, and linked to an excellent article. Judge Victor Marrero has ruled that the part of the PATRIOT Act discussing National Security Letters is unconstitutional, saying it violates the first and fourth amendments. Ars Technica has a good explanation of what happened. The basic idea is that these are letters which force people (read: ISPs, librarians, bankers, etc) to give information to the FBI, ostensibly so they can fight terrorism. Moreover, they come with “gag” restrictions which make it illegal to tell anyone else that you received such a letter. and there’s no judicial oversight, so it’s basically a way for the FBI to get any information they want while making it illegal to fight back (to bring this to court in the first place, the plaintiff had to remain anonymous and file as a John Doe with the ACLU). The government is likely to appeal; this same thing happened in 2004 with Judge Marrero, the government appealed, and the Secound Circuit sent it back to him after Congress revised the law in question. Nonetheless, this is definitely a (small) step in the right direction.