Federal judge rules surveillance provisions unconstitutional

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge has ruled unconstitutional national security provisions that permit federal investigators to access customer information from some companies without court approval.


The provisions "suffer from significant constitutional infirmities," and violate the First Amendment and separation of powers, Judge Susan Illston of the District Court for the Northern District of California wrote in an order on Thursday.

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This is going to be a fight that goes all the way to the Supreme Court. Today, a Federal Judge struck a blow for the First and Fourth Amendments. National security letters, which are documents that the Federal government can issue in order to spy on you without a warrant, have been ruled unconstitutional.

Article is here.

Great news. Lets hope the SCOTUS upholds it in the end. I don't have so much faith in them as of late.

danarhea said:

This is going to be a fight that goes all the way to the Supreme Court. Today, a Federal Judge struck a blow for the First and Fourth Amendments. National security letters, which are documents that the Federal government can issue in order to spy on you without a warrant, have been ruled unconstitutional.

Article is here.

Click to expand...

Good Catch Dan.....I was just reading this on another article over the Patriot Act.

The National Security Letter provision of the Patriot Act expanded the FBI's authority to demand personal customer records from Internet service providers, financial institutions and credit companies without prior court approval, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The letter to the telecommunications company sought "subscriber information" from the company, and warned that the letter's disclosure could result "in a danger to the United States," among other ramifications, according to the decision......snip~

From your piece. One thing is for certain it is going. She also ruled it is Up to Congress to Tinker with the letters not the Courts.

MMC said:

Good Catch Dan.....I was just reading this on another article over the Patriot Act.

The National Security Letter provision of the Patriot Act expanded the FBI's authority to demand personal customer records from Internet service providers, financial institutions and credit companies without prior court approval, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The letter to the telecommunications company sought "subscriber information" from the company, and warned that the letter's disclosure could result "in a danger to the United States," among other ramifications, according to the decision......snip~

From your piece. One thing is for certain it is going. She also ruled it is Up to Congress to Tinker with the letters not the Courts.

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The most egregious part of the expansion of national security letters under the Patriot Act is that you could go to jail if you went to the media and complained that you had even gotten a national security letter.

danarhea said:

The most egregious part of the expansion of national security letters under the Patriot Act is that you could go to jail if you went to the media and complained that you had even gotten a national security letter.

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Here let me add this to your Piece, my brutha!

They're called national security letters and the FBI issues thousands of them a year to banks, phone companies and other businesses demanding customer information. They're sent without judicial review and recipients are barred from disclosing them.

The government has failed to show that the letters and the blanket non-disclosure policy "serve the compelling need of national security," and the gag order creates "too large a danger that speech is being unnecessarily restricted," U.S. District Judge Susan Illston wrote.

She ordered the FBI to stop issuing the letters, but put that order on hold for 90 days so the U.S. Department of Justice can pursue an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Illston wrote that she was also troubled by the limited powers judges have to lift the gag orders.

Judges can eliminate the gag order only if they have "no reason to believe that disclosure may endanger the national security of the United States, interfere with a criminal counter-terrorism, or counterintelligence investigation, interfere with diplomatic relations, or endanger the life or physical safety of any person."

That provision also violated the Constitution because it blocks meaningful judicial review.

Illston isn't the first federal judge to find the letters troubling. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York also found the gag order unconstitutional, but allowed the FBI to continue issuing them if it made changes to its system such as notifying recipients they can ask federal judges to review the letters.

The FBI made 16,511 national security letter requests for information regarding 7,201 people in 2011, the latest data available. The FBI uses the letters to collect unlimited kinds of sensitive, private information like financial and phone records.....snip~

AP Newswire | Stars and Stripes

The DOJ will review. The DOJ will review her Gag Order Ruling. The DOJ was unavailable for Comment. Now they will say they were following the Order from the 2nd Court of appeals by sending the letters to federal judges for review.

danarhea said:

This is going to be a fight that goes all the way to the Supreme Court. Today, a Federal Judge struck a blow for the First and Fourth Amendments. National security letters, which are documents that the Federal government can issue in order to spy on you without a warrant, have been ruled unconstitutional.

Article is here.

Click to expand...

Hopefully the majority of SCOTUS agrees.