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.'"

Comments

I, for one...

[Telephone Sanitizer]

I, for one, welcome our newly Constitutionally-conscious judicial overlords.

Now the rest...

[mikee805]

Now we just have to get the rest struck down.

Odds

[whisper_jeff]

Anyone want to guess how long it'll be before Victor finds himself out of a job?... Unfortunately...

Re:It's a good start

[Wandering Wombat]

Well, you're too dumb to use your freedoms properly. You should THANK your appointed officials for deciding the best way for you to go about your daily life.

Patriot act ISN'T patriotic.

[infonography]

This act is contrary to everything that makes America who it is. At least they had the marginally good sense to put a sunset on it. I think they knew it would be kicked out at some point anyway. Good riddance. Patriot Act supporters are whats wrong in America.

Re:About damn time...

[Trigun]

Unfortunately, it's not the supreme court that remembers about those ... quaint old "rights" and "warrants" and "due process". And guess where this ruling is heading...

Contribute

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Contribute

[drudd]

Actually that would be a terrible idea. You can't have effective oversight if your funding is controlled by the party you are overseeing.

Doug

Re:Contribute

[E 99]

IMO that's a BIG problem. It means essentially that they can pass any unconstitutional law and SCOTUS will take four years before they'll strike it down as unconstitutional. That IMO is really bad.

It takes less than two years to vote out a Representative who votes for an unconstitutional law. The founding fathers were relying on the people, not SCOTUS, to defend their constitution.

Re:Contribute

[timmy the large]

The ACLU working with the Texas NRA has actively been fighting the use of profiling white males in the Houston area. These men are pulled over by the police and searched for a firearm. If a firearm is found it is confiscated and the man is arrested. This is in direct contridiction to state law and rulings by the Texas judiciary on the law. The ACLU and the TNRA are fighting to put a stop to this action.

The worst part is that the local DA and the police know it is illegal to do this and do it anyway.

Personally I think we need both the ACLU and the NRA, and as many other groups that want to fight for our civil liberties.

Re:to be blunt

[goldspider]

I wouldn't solely blame "the administration" for this, as both parties have actively supported the Patriot Act.

Re:Should not have been a judge in the first place

[Chris Burke]

I'm tired of activist judges who ignore basic law principles

Basic law principles... like the 4th Amendment. Oh, wait, that's what Congress and the President ignored. Good thing someone is actually about enforcing the law. Too bad there are so many who would throw out our most basic of law -- the Constitution -- the second it inconveniences them.

Doomed

[overshoot]

The Honorable Judge Don Quixote is tilting at windmills here. According to the United States Supreme Court, the ACLU and its clients don't have standing to challenge this law, since they can't prove that they personally were ever the subjects of investigations.

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.

Patriot Act sins by omission, not comission.

[hey!]

Actually the Patriot Act is a mixed bag of some stuff that is pretty bad, and other stuff that seems reasonable but isn't a solution to the situation we faced on 9/11.

If you go through the provisions, most of them seem to be aimed at the proverbial "ticking time bomb" scenario. This wouldn't have helped on 9/11, because the first inkling we had the operation was going on was when the plane was hijacked. At that point the time it would take to get a warrant in Boston vs. Washington DC wasn't an issue. Other provisions pierce the Chinese wall between intelligence and law enforcement. Again that wasn't an issue in 9/11. Had we taken the steps available to us under the old rules, it would have made a difference. Having the same attitude, the new rules would not have made a difference.

If we had done everything we should have in the lead up to 9/11, it is conceivable although not certain that the provisions in the Patriot Act might have made a difference. That is saying something for the Patriot Act in my opinion.

The main problem with the Patriot Act is not what it contains, but what it fails to contain: any provision to hold the executive branch accountable for its use of its new powers. And therein lies the opportunity for a tool of security to become a tool of tyranny. As President Reagan said: trust, but verify. Which means you can trust somebody when any cheating would be made obvious.

The police have the ability to do all kinds of things to you that you wouldn't want them to do, up to and including shooting you dead. This doesn't mean we live in some kind of police haunted dystopia, for the simple reason that there are rules that govern the police use of their powers, and when they exercise those powers they have to answer to the courts as to whether they were using those powers within their lawful limits. That's accountability: it's a philosophy that works.

This by the way is the problem with the administration's wiretapping programs. I'm happy to let them have such programs for the purposes they claim so long as somebody independent verifies they are using it for that alone. If there is no such mechanism, it doesn't matter if the program is being run by Jesus Himself. It's a bad program.

Re:Patriot Act sins by omission, not comission.

[Vancorps]

You make some fine points but verifying that they are being used as intended isn't enough. There needs to be steep penalties for misuse of the immense amount of power being given.

Of course in my mind the old rules were fine, there was sufficient information to prevent the tragedy much like like the events leading up to Pearl Harbor. The problem was communicating internally to get the right information to the right people at the right time. That doesn't take the PATRIOT Act with its far overreaching changes. Imagine how many billions have been spent because of it and how little it has accomplished to help us. I can't believe that in modern times we still have the same problems with communication. An f'in email could have prevented all of this from happening.

Of course none of this would have been an issue if Congress had been doing it's job initially. There's the real broken link. The wiretapping programs are simply absurd. There is no way to reasonably interpret the constitution to allow such things. The constitution is a document which specifically states what the government can do to us. There is simply no language in there that would allow this invasion of privacy. Combine that with all the search and seizure changes involved in the war on drugs and you've got yourself a pattern. I wish it was as simple as republican versus democrat but there is a long history of this abuse and more laws aren't going to fix it. Someone needs to enforce the laws we already have. We need to get rid of the PATRIOT Act, repeal the war powers act, and get back to some semblance of sanity.

How in the world in this day and age can a president blatantly violate the constitution and remain completely unchallenged? It's simply astounding.

Re:Patriot Act sins by omission, not comission.

[karmatic]

Let's blockquote something here:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

At the time this was written, it pretty much included everything. Let's blockquote something else here:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

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 enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

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):

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

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:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...

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.

Re: Socialized Medicine

[Telephone Sanitizer]

"Ironically, socialized medicine takes healthcare decisions out of individuals' hands..."

So do HMO's.

Re:It's a good start

[Anonymous Coward]

Protecting our freedoms? I thought it was about stopping terrorist attacks. I mean, so many people have died in America from Osama Bin Laden's terrorism; there have been almost 3,000 deaths this century!

Of course, since over 40,000 people die every year on the highways, I'd like to see some of that "Homeland Security" money go to guard rails and other safety improvements. I'm far more afraid of the cell-phone weilding blonde than the bomb wielding Muslim!

But wait, that's still chicken feed. Osama should be jealous as hell of a far bigger terrorist - RJ Reynolds, whose poison kills over half a million people yearly! the corporate terrorists are truly deadly!

Even Ronald McDonald kicks Osama's ass when it comes to killing Americans. Heart Disease also kills over half a million Americans every year.

Hell, even Bush himself is deadlier to Americans than Osama, since well over 3,000 of the soldiers he sent to Iraq (to destabilize the region and drive gas prices up; he's an oil man. Gas was $1 here when he took office, now it's over three times as high) have died there.

Al Quaida? Shit, the tornado that tore through my home town in 2006 miraculously didn't kill or even seriously injure anyone, but look at the destruction of ONE building! The tree behind my apartment looked like a weed someone had stomped on. I saw twisted girders, trailor homes torn in half, five foot diameter trees uprooted, wood splinters imbedded in concrete. If Osama saw what I saw he'd have given up.

So I completely agree with you. That God damned abomination must go! I think the Congress and Senate who passed it and the President who begged for it and signed it should go as well.

-mcgrew

Record Companies

[KevMar]

ok, so the US government must get a court order to get customer info from ISP's but the record companies dont?

Re:It's a good start

[be-fan]

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?

Re:It's a good start

[PopeRatzo]

the problem i see is lawyers..

Funny, that people who would love to get rid of all the lawyers are often the first ones to sign up for the class action suit when their kid gets brain damage from the lead that their contractor used in the paint around their pool.

I'm amused by the dual-enemies of the folks who've been brainwashed by the Corporate Right: lawyers and media. It seldom occurs to people that when some corporation feeds you something dangerous, or sells you a battery that bursts into flames, or a surgeon comes to work drunk one day and kills your wife, or a credit reporting agency makes a mistake that messes up your life, that a lawyer is the guy who's going to work for YOU to get your back. Believe me, it doesn't just leap unbidden into the mind of some guy who works in a Ford Plant that we need Tort Reforms. It's some blowhard on the AM radio who works for the huge corporations who's selling that load of crap. in the hope that maybe they can start seriously getting away with shit again. And it's not the lawsuits that the corporations bring that are in danger. Don't worry, the RIAA will still be able to sue your ass. "Tort reforms" just means you won't be able to sue them back. It's like the wonderful "bankruptcy reform" that the Republican congress and the Bush Administration unleashed on America. Notice it doesn't prevent Boeing or Countryside from declaring bankruptcy and screwing their investors, it's just to make sure that the guy who earns $45k per year whose kid has spina bifida and the doctor bills break him that is prevented from getting a fresh start by using the bankruptcy laws. Fair and Balanced is the Orwellian catchphrase of the day.

The other boogieman is the "media". Of course, when you are royally fucking most everyone, one way to prevent them from noticing how badly their asses hurt is to tell them that reality really isn't real. You can't believe those pictures on TV of guys with black hoods being electrocuted or ravaged by dogs, because that's the media and we know you can't trust them. And dead bodies floating in downtown New Orleans? Those damn liberal media again. "Hell-fire" says the tan, fat dope-fiend on the radio, "who you gonna believe? Me or your own lying eyes?" How dare you think your president is a dissembling halfwit stuttering prick who's not even a halfway decent liar! It's just the media who makes him look that way, probably with some high-tech photoshop or special effects or something. You know how they are.

Just remember, when the SWAT team rings your doorbell by accident, looking for the crack dealer who lives one street over, or your hooked up because some fat lady on an airplane thought the Egyptian symbol on your baseball cap is an Al Queda secret code and you're suddenly looking at the inside of a cell, you're gonna hope all those lawyers haven't been shipped off to Darfur.

Just remember the story of the late Richard Jewell, a sad sack whose life was destroyed by an overzealous FBI who, oopsie!, accused him falsely of setting a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics. If he didn't have a kick-ass, liberal, New York, ACLU-loving, pinko L.A.W.Y.E.R., he might have spent his last decade in some cinderblock 8x8 with a seatless toilet.