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Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act
Shining Celebi writes "U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled in favor of the ACLU and struck down a portion of the revised USA PATRIOT Act this morning, forcing investigators to go through the courts to obtain approval before ordering ISPs to give up information on customers, instead of just sending them a National Security Letter. In the words of Judge Marrero, this use of National Security Letters 'offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers.'"
If you appreciate what the ACLU does, it's worth noting that they could always use your support.
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The ACLU challenged this law, and hence brought about this ruling. Hopefully, they will be successful in challenging similar laws in the future.
You benefit from their work.
They need to eat.
Donate.
And if we citizens had any kind of backbone, the Whitehouse and Capitol building would have burned the very night the bill became law.
Armed citizens are supposed to be the ultimate check and balance, but we too seem to prefer comfort over doing our jobs.
Hint: Whenever you want a tyrannic act approved, just name it "patriot", "family", "protection", "security" or whichever nice name that will appeal to the idio^H^H^H^Hvoters.
The Government can prevent this kind of challenge by simply declaring that the existence of such NSLs is a State Secret, denying any prospective plaintiffs proof that they have standing. That's exactly what the USSC ruled in the secret-wiretap ruling recently and the Administration is sure to have pointed that out (I don't have a copy of the pleadings here, but given the Administration's fondness for that tactic I can't imagine that they would have missed that one.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Read the actual decision. (PDF) What the court ruled was that the "gag rule" associated with "National Security Letters" was fundamentally unconstitutional as a First Amendment violation. The issue is that the FBI can't impose a "gag order" on someone without court approval.
The previous issue, issuance of National Security Letters without court approval as a Fourth Amendment violation, was dealt with when Congress revised the Patriot Act last year to allow recipients of a National Security Letter to challenge them in court, like a subpoena.
As a classic rule of First Amendment jurisprudence, when the Court finds a First Amendment violation, they strike down the entire statute, rather than trying to patch it. That's what the court did here. The court also stayed the execution of the order pending an appeal, which is likely.
It's a narrow holding. The FBI can still issue National Security Letters without going to court first, but anyone who receives one is now in a much stronger position to argue about it. As a practical matter, if you work for an ISP or telco and get a National Security Letter, your response is "This has to go through our lawyers."
First of all, there is no objective statistic [realclearpolitics.com] that indicates that the US is behind on medical care. All of the "statistics" are based on certain very subjective assumptions that automatically penalize capitalist systems.
Look, I'm not going to trade bullshit partisan links with you. The WHO knows what they're doing. They deal with this shit "on the ground". I know people who work closely with them, and I trust their opinion a _whole_ lot more than those of some pundits on the internet. The US sucks on _objective_, unarguable measurements. The WHO has a giant database of core health indicators for countries around the world. Highlight the United States, and the UK on the first list, then click the "Mortality" checkbox to the right-side of the second list. Compare the core health statistics.
The US wins a few against the UK (deaths due to TB, deaths due to HIV, mortality rate for cancer, years of life lost to diseases), but we lose most of the big ones. Our overall and healthy life expectancy is lower. Our probability of dying between 15-60 is much higher, for both males and females. Our probability of dying under age 5 is higher. Our infant mortality, neonatal mortality, and maternal mortality are all higher (our infant mortality is actually close to last among developed nations). Our injury statistics are much worse.
This is just the UK, by the way, which ranked 18th in the WHO rankings, compared to our 37th. It is also a country whose per-capita GDP is about 30% lower than ours, and whose per-capita expenditures on health care are far lower than ours.
Look, these are the kinds of statistics that matter to people who work in public health. It's the sort of numbers we use to decide which 3rd-world nation to give foreign aid to. It's fairly unpoliticized, and as close as you're going to get to objectivity in this particular debate. And these statistics show that we're quite a ways behind a much less wealthy country, and we spend more money to achieve that state of affairs...
That said, it is certainly the case that the US health care system could use some fixing, but the solution is to take the government out of it, not add more government. We could drastically reduce health care costs by limiting frivolous lawsuits and government red tape. That way, more people could have health care and it would be better to boot.
And will there be fairies and unicorns and magical bunnies too?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
At the time this was written, it pretty much included everything. Let's blockquote something else here:
Fairly plain language, isn't it? In short, the Federal government doesn't (legitimately) have the right to wiretap, nor does it have the ability to give itself said right. This is _especially_ true if calls are, like you say, property (effects). So, to use the format you used:
1. The government doesn't have the right to wiretap it's citizens without a warrant issued based on probable cause
2. Because the constitution makes no distinction between interstate, intra-state, or international actions with regard to the fourth amendment, international calls are no different.
It's fairly simple - the constitution is an enumeration of the powers of the federal government. It doesn't make any "international" distinction, so either the (federal) government has the right to intercept all calls, or no calls.
Even if the fourth amendment doesn't apply, and the tenth is rejected on the basis of a constitutional lack of a "right to privacy" - I would point out the 9th amendment:
The constitution is, by design, a list of what the federal government can (and cannot in some cases) do, not a list of what the people can do.
Furthermore, if calls are "property", there are potential fifth amendment issues (as well as potential self-incrimination):
And finally, the most important reason - people's behavior changes when they are spied on. As such, it is effectively abridging the freedom of speech:
So, it's illegal, it's immoral, but they do it anyway. Until the constitution is amended, it really doesn't matter what laws congress passes allowing it - it's still unconstitutional.
"First thing we do, we kill all the lawyers!"
That's from Shakespeare. I think I've heard it quoted more than any of his other lines. And every goddamn time it's being quoted by someone who thinks he's speaking against lawyers for the common good, not realizing that line was uttered because a bunch of lawyers makes tyranny a lot harder.
Thank you for knowing what the hell you're talking about. I don't see that enough.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
It does NOT enumerate any rights for non-citizens. If a foreign national visited the US, the government could imprison and execute him without trial, without once violating the Constitution.
I think you're missing something or are misinterpreting the Constitution of the USA and Bill of Rights. In the Constitution itself "citizen" is used a number of tymes, such as in the requirements to run federal office. However when enumerating rights in the Bill of Rights not once is "citizen" used, "people" is what's used. the first use of "citizen in the amendments is Amendment 11 when it says:
Falcon"The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State."
Again "citizen is in the 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments. I'd say it's pretty obvious the Founding Fathers meant all people when they said people have these rights. And you can't say they were written at widely different tymes, the Bill of Right was ratified December 15, 1791 and the 11th was ratified February 7, 1795. Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the Declaration of Independence, was elected president in 1801, after the ratifications.
Should there be a Law?