Judge Invalidates Patriot Act Provisions

[Cobra]

Hope this hasn't been posted yet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090601438.html

A federal judge struck down controversial portions of the USA Patriot Act in a ruling that declared them unconstitutional yesterday, ordering the FBI to stop its wide use of a warrantless tactic for obtaining e-mail and telephone data from private companies for counterterrorism investigations.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York said the FBI's use of secret "national security letters" to demand such data violates the First Amendment and constitutional provisions on the separation of powers, because the FBI can impose indefinite gag orders on the companies and the courts have little opportunity to review the letters.

The secrecy provisions are "the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values," Marrero wrote. His strongly worded 103-page opinion amounted to a rebuke of both the administration and Congress, which had revised the act in 2005 to take into account an earlier ruling by the judge on the same topic.

Though not directly related to P2P issues, this ruling could be used to bolster the side in favor of P2P sharing saying "If even the nation's FBI can't send out blanket letters forcing ISP's to give up the private information of their customers, the RIAA by no stretch of the imagination has the right to do so."

[Scyre]

It's about time someone realized these dangerous provisions added to that ridiculous bill!

I have been informing fellow american citizens since this went into effect of the rights we were stripped of, and MANY of them never even knew. This was a powerplay inacted at a weak moment and so many people were terrorized BY THE GOVERNMENTAL PROPAGANDA that they all jumped on board, not realizing the government could easily abuse this power, which they quickly did.

Thank goodness there is still some sanity left in our legal system!

Best regards, and Be Good!
Scyre

[GhostShip]

I,m sure the revelation of widespread abuse of these types of unconstitutional FBI gag orders helped the Judge reach this decision.

Justice must always be seen to be done, and anyone receiving this type of order would be breaking the law by even mentioning it, something you may find in Russia of old and China, these are certainly not conducive to a healthy democracy and this is an excellent reaffirment of the rights of the people over corrupt power brokers.