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Judge Bitchslaps FBI, Strikes Down Parts of Patriot Act
FBI loses 007 license
AFP
07 September, 2007
The FBI lost its ‘blanket right’ to access financial, telephone and Internet records without court authorization after a federal judge struck down the parts of the recently revised USA Patriot Act.
A US judge on Thursday struck down a law allowing federal anti-terrorism agents to access financial, telephone and Internet records without a warrant.
Judge Victor Marrero ruled that Congress overstepped its authority when it allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to keep the requests secret as part of the USA Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism measure made law in the days after the September 11 2001.
The law allows the FBI to issue gag orders to those receiving requests for information - usually Internet service providers, banks and libraries - from disclosing anything about the request.
Congress rewrote the law in 2005 to give people the right to challenge the gag order in court after Marrero ruled in 2004 that it violates the right to free speech by closing off “that ‘entire topic’ from public discourse".
But the FBI was given the final word on whether it is safe to remove the gag order, something Marrero said Thursday “offends the fundamental constitutional principals of checks and balances and separations of powers".
It also creates the risk that the FBI would not remove gag orders “when it believes the recipient may speak out against the use” of the records requests, Marrero wrote in a 103-page ruling.
However, given the “importance of the issues involved", Marrero said the ruling would not be imposed for 90 days in order to allow the government to exercise its right to appeal or seek other actions.
The law allows federal agents to demand “electronic transaction records” such as financial transactions, when and to whom someone wrote an e-mail or made a phone call, which websites they visited and when they logged on and off the Internet.
It also allows agents to identify Internet users who use alternative identities in online discussions.
Instead of going to court to get approval, agents only have to show their supervisor that the information is “relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities".
The FBI made 142,000 such requests from 2003 to 2005 and in hundreds of cases broke the rules to get them by either seeking information not permitted under the act or else not getting sufficient approval, a congressionally-requested report found.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the challenge to court, hailed the decision.
“As the court recognised, there must be real, meaningful judicial checks on the exercise of executive power,” said Melissa Goodman, an ACLU staff attorney who worked on the case.
“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."
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said it was “reviewing the decision and considering our options at this time".
AFP
07 September, 2007
The FBI lost its ‘blanket right’ to access financial, telephone and Internet records without court authorization after a federal judge struck down the parts of the recently revised USA Patriot Act.
A US judge on Thursday struck down a law allowing federal anti-terrorism agents to access financial, telephone and Internet records without a warrant.
Judge Victor Marrero ruled that Congress overstepped its authority when it allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to keep the requests secret as part of the USA Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism measure made law in the days after the September 11 2001.
The law allows the FBI to issue gag orders to those receiving requests for information - usually Internet service providers, banks and libraries - from disclosing anything about the request.
Congress rewrote the law in 2005 to give people the right to challenge the gag order in court after Marrero ruled in 2004 that it violates the right to free speech by closing off “that ‘entire topic’ from public discourse".
But the FBI was given the final word on whether it is safe to remove the gag order, something Marrero said Thursday “offends the fundamental constitutional principals of checks and balances and separations of powers".
It also creates the risk that the FBI would not remove gag orders “when it believes the recipient may speak out against the use” of the records requests, Marrero wrote in a 103-page ruling.
However, given the “importance of the issues involved", Marrero said the ruling would not be imposed for 90 days in order to allow the government to exercise its right to appeal or seek other actions.
The law allows federal agents to demand “electronic transaction records” such as financial transactions, when and to whom someone wrote an e-mail or made a phone call, which websites they visited and when they logged on and off the Internet.
It also allows agents to identify Internet users who use alternative identities in online discussions.
Instead of going to court to get approval, agents only have to show their supervisor that the information is “relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities".
The FBI made 142,000 such requests from 2003 to 2005 and in hundreds of cases broke the rules to get them by either seeking information not permitted under the act or else not getting sufficient approval, a congressionally-requested report found.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the challenge to court, hailed the decision.
“As the court recognised, there must be real, meaningful judicial checks on the exercise of executive power,” said Melissa Goodman, an ACLU staff attorney who worked on the case.
“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."
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said it was “reviewing the decision and considering our options at this time".
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