National Security Letters Ruled Unconstitutional, Banned 231
A U.S. District Court Judge in California today ruled that so-called National Security Letters, used by government agencies to force business and organizations to turn over information on citizens, are unconstitutional. Judge Susan Illston ordered the government to stop using them, but gave the government a 90-day window to appeal the decision, during which the NSLs may still be sent out. The letters were challenged by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of a telecom who was ordered to provide data. "The telecom took the extraordinary and rare step of challenging the underlying authority of the National Security Letter, as well as the legitimacy of the gag order that came with it. Both challenges are allowed under a federal law that governs NSLs, a power greatly expanded under the Patriot Act that allows the government to get detailed information on Americans’ finances and communications without oversight from a judge. The FBI has issued hundreds of thousands of NSLs and been reprimanded for abusing them — though almost none of the requests have been challenged by the recipients. After the telecom challenged the NSL, the Justice Department took its own extraordinary measure and sued the company, arguing in court documents that the company was violating the law by challenging its authority. The move stunned the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing the anonymous telecom. ... After heated negotiations with EFF, the Justice Department agreed to stay the civil suit and let the telecom’s challenge play out in court. The Justice Department subsequently filed a motion to compel in the challenge case, but has never dropped the civil suit."
Link to donate to the EFF (Score:5, Informative)
Re:what can Joe Citizen do? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Patriot Act is unconstitutional (Score:5, Informative)
[Once it's been upheld by the Supreme Court], no one can ever challenge their constitutionality again.
Not quite. Ever heard of Plessy v. Ferguson? It's admittedly much more difficult (on the balance for good reason) to challenge a previously-decided Supreme Court decision, but by no means impossible. That's just one (probably the most famous) example of the Court reversing itself, but there's a lot more.
Precedents (Score:5, Informative)
And then no one can ever challenge their constitutionality again.
Well, there's the Dred Scott decision; but the process of challenging that one killed 600,000 Americans.
Less difficult challenges were "Buck vs. Bell" which IIRC was the one that allowed states to sterilize people against their will and was the source of the infamous "3 generations of imbeciles are enough" quote.
I'm sure there are plenty of other cases; but the bottom line is that SCOTUS ruling one way doesn't etch things in stone. You know what they say, Freedom isn't Free. Sometimes you have to die, fill the jails, lose all your money, etc; and if you're lucky you'll live to see your grandchildren get their God given rights back from those who stole them.
Re:This is impossible (Score:2, Informative)
Anonymous Donations Are Accepted (Score:5, Informative)
Their address is:
This is probably as close as you can get to anonymous, unless you have a friend drop off cash at their office.
Re:what can Joe Citizen do? (Score:0, Informative)
The main thing you can do, is when people ask you to vote for the constitutional amendment which legalizes NSLs, say you're going to vote against it and why, and then when election day comes, follow through on the promise.
Unless you're a Congressman, Senator or state legislator, you don't get to vote on Constitutional amendments in the United States. So your "when" isn't going to happen.
Re:Patriot Act is unconstitutional (Score:2, Informative)
"Patriot Act" was a very highly manipulative naming for a very unpatriotic act.
It is DoubleSpeak exactly as described by Orwell in the book 1984. Some people read the book and see cautionary tale of a dystopian future in which an oppresive govenment exerts mind control on its citizens, while others see it as a handy instruction booklet. The former are called "Normal", the latter "Republicans."