ACLU: ObamAdministration will defend Patriot Act ‘gag order’ letters

By GottaLaff

Here we go again:

The Obama administration will not ask the Supreme Court to review the national security letter provision of the Patriot Act, which has been criticized as unconstitutional by civil rights groups and curtailed by a lower court following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

By not seeking a review, the ACLU said, the administration is committing itself to defending the Bush-era rule.

The ACLU’s full press release here.

Court sides with ACLU, strikes down Patriot Act gag provision

By GottaLaff

Oh, this feels so good, like a back rub:

A federal appeals court ruling late Monday is the cause celebre of the American Civil Liberties Union, as another provision of the Bush administration's Patriot Act falls to the judicial system.

Until the ruling, recipients of so-called "national security letters" were legally forbidden from speaking out. The letters, usually a demand for documents, or a notice that private records had been searched by government authorities, were criticized as a cover-all for FBI abuses.

"The appeals court invalidated parts of the statute that wrongly placed the burden on NSL recipients to initiate judicial review of gag orders, holding that the government has the burden to go to court and justify silencing NSL recipients," said the ACLU in a release. "The appeals court also invalidated parts of the statute that narrowly limited judicial review of the gag orders – provisions that required the courts to treat the government's claims about the need for secrecy as conclusive and required the courts to defer entirely to the executive branch."

Because of the ruling, the government will now be forced to justify individual gag orders before a court, instead of casually wielding the power of a blanket gag as the Bush administration has done since the blindingly fast passage of the Patriot Act in Oct. 2001.

Incremental CPR for democracy.