Dan Eggen / Washington Post & BBC News & ACLU – 2007-09-06 22:54:19
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/06/AR2007090601438.html
Judge Invalidates Patriot Act Provisions
FBI Is Told to Halt Warrantless Tactic
Dan Eggen / Washington Post
WASHINGTON, DC (September 7, 2007) — A federal judge struck down controversial portions of the USA Patriot Act in a ruling that declared them unconstitutional yesterday, ordering the FBI to stop its wide use of a warrantless tactic for obtaining e-mail and telephone data from private companies for counterterrorism investigations.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in New York said the FBI’s use of secret “national security letters” to demand such data violates the First Amendment and constitutional provisions on the separation of powers, because the FBI can impose indefinite gag orders on the companies and the courts have little opportunity to review the letters.
The secrecy provisions are “the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values,” Marrero wrote. His strongly worded 103-page opinion amounted to a rebuke of both the administration and Congress, which had revised the act in 2005 to take into account an earlier ruling by the judge on the same topic.
Although a government appeal is likely, the decision could eliminate or sharply curtail the FBI’s issuance of tens of thousands of national security letters (NSLs) each year to telephone companies, Internet providers and other communications firms. The FBI says it typically orders that such letters be kept confidential to make sure that suspects do not learn they are being investigated, as well as to protect “sources and methods” used in terrorism and counterintelligence probes.
The ruling follows reports this year by Justice Department and FBI auditors that the FBI potentially violated privacy laws or bureau rules more than a thousand times while issuing NSLs in recent years — violations that did not come to light quickly, partly because of the Patriot Act’s secrecy rules.
“The risk of investing the FBI with unchecked discretion to restrict such speech is that government agents, based on their own self-certification, may limit speech that does not pose a significant threat to national security or other compelling government interest,” Marrero said.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the ruling. “We are reviewing the decision and considering our options,” said spokesman Dean Boyd.
But Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit in the case, said the ruling “is yet another setback in the Bush administration’s strategy in the war on terror and demonstrates the far-reaching efforts of this administration to use powers that are clearly unconstitutional.”
Marrero’s decision would bar the use of NSLs to demand data from electronic communications companies, a procedure that was the focus of the lawsuit. But the ruling appears to leave untouched the FBI’s ability to demand bank records, credit reports and other financial data related to counterterrorism and other probes, because those authorities are covered by other statutes, according to legal experts. Marrero delayed enforcement of his order for 90 days to give the government a chance to appeal.
Although the FBI has had the ability to issue NSLs for many years, the Patriot Act, enacted in October 2001, significantly relaxed the rules for using them while increasing the secrecy requirements. The result has been a surge in NSL requests, from fewer than 9,000 in 2000 to nearly 50,000 in 2005, according to Justice Department records.
Yesterday’s ruling marks the second time that Marrero has struck down the Patriot Act’s NSL provisions. In 2004, after the ACLU filed suit on behalf of the same plaintiff — an Internet service provider identified as John Doe — he ruled similarly that the NSL provisions were unconstitutional because they silenced recipients and gave them no recourse through the courts.
While a government appeal was pending, Congress passed legislation in 2005 aimed at solving the problems identified by Marrero. But the judge ruled yesterday that the revisions were not adequate and that under the new law, “several aspects . . . violate the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers.”
The new legislation essentially required the courts to go along with the gag orders as long as the FBI certified that the secrecy was justified. Marrero suggested in his decision that Congress could solve the problems by more sharply limiting the FBI’s ability to silence recipients while allowing more oversight from the courts.
Marrero, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1999, warned of “far-reaching invasions of liberty” when the courts refuse to set limits on government power. He pointed specifically to Supreme Court rulings that sanctioned the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II and upheld racial segregation in schools and other public accommodations.
Most lawmakers were quiet about yesterday’s ruling. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), the only senator to vote against the original Patriot Act in 2001, said in a statement, “Congress needs to fix the mess it created when it gave the government overly-broad powers to obtain sensitive information about Americans.”
Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy group, said the ruling, if it stands, should provoke Congress to enact new legislation. “Congress will need to amend the NSL statute to put in place a system of prior judicial review. . . . That’s something it should have done six years ago in the original Patriot Act.”
The issue of national security letters poses a dilemma for telecommunications carriers, which want to comply with government efforts to fight terrorism but also want to be seen as respecting customers’ privacy, said Herbert Fenster, a director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s National Chamber Litigation Center who has represented major carriers.
“There is a natural tension between good citizenship on the one hand and sound business judgment on the other,” he said. “When complying necessitates that they partner with the government, and when it all comes out [in public], it’s bad for business.”
Fenster said there have been cases in which carriers questioned NSLs and in a few cases, the NSLs were withdrawn. Sometimes, there was a compromise. In some cases, the demand letter was eventually made public.
Justice Department and FBI officials have strongly defended their use of NSLs and say they have implemented numerous reforms to lower the number of privacy violations. Administration officials have also characterized the letters as a crucial method of quickly obtaining information in the early stages of an investigation.
Kenneth Wainstein, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, told the House intelligence committee earlier this year that NSLs are “important building blocks in national security investigations, and we must continue [to] use them if we are to be successful at heading off the threat of international terrorism in the United States.”
Staff writer Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, US Code, for non commercial, educationa purposes.
US Terror Law ‘Unconstitutional’
BBC World News
(September 6, 2007) — A law allowing federal anti-terrorism agents to access information on the US public without a warrant has been ruled as unconstitutional by a US judge.
Victor Marrero said Congress exceeded its authority by allowing the FBI to keep requests secret under the Patriot Act, passed after the 9/11 attacks. He said the act offended constitutional principles of checks and balances, and violated the guarantee of free speech.
The requests were mainly for financial, telephone and Internet records. Judge Marrero said his ruling would not take effect immediately, thus giving the government time to appeal.
Personal Records
The Patriot Act allows for the use of national security letters, or administrative subpoenas, in cases relating to spying or terrorism. Under such a subpoena, personal records of clients and customers must be handed over to the FBI from such sources as banks, telephone firms and internet service providers.
Judge Marrero ruled in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union, which had complained against the use of such letters. He said his ruling did not mean the FBI must get court approval before ordering records, but that it must be able to justify why the request should be kept secret.
In the year before the 11 September 2001 attacks, the FBI issued about 8,500 national security letter requests.
A government report earlier this year said requests had risen from 39,000 in 2003 to about 56,000 in 2004 before falling back to about 47,000 in 2005.
Court Orders Justice Department to Provide Further Explanation for Withholding Documents
American Civil Liberties Union
WASHINGTON (September 6, 2007) — A federal judge today rejected the government’s broad claims of secrecy in its refusal to make public documents involving the National Security Agency’s (NSA) warrantless wiretapping program. U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy’s ruling comes in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought last year by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Security Archive and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
According to the court order, the Department of Justice must, by October 26, provide more substantial reasons for refusing to turn over certain documents.
“Today’s ruling deals a blow to the administration’s sweeping and often unfounded secrecy claims,” said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “When documents are withheld under the Freedom of Information Act, the government must have a better excuse for keeping the documents secret than ‘because we said so.’”
In December 2005, the ACLU and the National Security Archive submitted requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking records relating to the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program. The ACLU and the Archive filed a lawsuit to enforce the FOIA requests and the case was consolidated with a similar lawsuit brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). The government asked the court to permit it to keep the NSA documents secret.
Although allowing the government to withhold some information, Judge Kennedy, in today’s 24-page ruling, wrote that the Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI and the NSA must provide additional explanations for withholding many documents related to the NSA wiretapping program, particularly those that relate to legal justifications for the program. The judge wrote that when documents are withheld under the Freedom of Information Act, the government is required to provide adequate reasons for why the documents are being withheld. Judge Kennedy found that the government’s “justifications for withholding various records…are insufficient.” In addition, Judge Kennedy stated that he would review the documents himself if the government’s future submissions continued to be unsatisfactory.
The court noted the excessiveness of the government’s secrecy claims at various points of the opinion. For example, Judge Kennedy expressed “substantial frustration” with the fact that although his law clerk had received a high level security clearance, the government would not allow the clerk access to relevant materials. Judge Kennedy also rejected the government’s claim that it had to keep secret the number of pages of relevant Office of Legal Counsel memoranda on the NSA program, calling the argument “implausible.”
“The American people deserve information about its government’s surveillance program, particularly documents about the government’s legal justification for choosing to conduct surveillance in violation of a statute for over five years,” said Melissa Goodman, an attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “Time and time again this administration has attempted to keep secret vital information necessary for an informed debate without sufficient explanation, as if justifying its secrecy were optional. That is not acceptable in a democracy. We are heartened that, in this case, the court recognized that.”
In early 2006, soon after the NSA’s illegal activities became public, the ACLU filed a separate lawsuit on behalf of criminal defense attorneys, journalists and scholars challenging the NSA’s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ calls and e-mails. The government responded to the legal challenge not by defending the legality of the NSA’s surveillance activities, but by invoking secrecy as the basis for dismissing the lawsuit.
The administration argued that the NSA’s surveillance was so secret that not even a court could determine its legality. On August 17, 2006, a federal court in Michigan agreed with the ACLU that the program was illegal. The government appealed that ruling to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which dismissed the legal challenge finding that plaintiffs did not have “standing” to bring the case because they could not prove with certainty they were secretly spied upon. The appellate court did not decide the merits of the case. The ACLU is considering its legal options, including appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In another related matter, the ACLU last month filed legal papers with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) asking for the release of its orders and legal opinions that reportedly led to the recent expansion of the government’s wiretapping authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In response to a court order, the government responded on August 31, claiming that the FISC should simply defer to the government’s claims of secrecy. The ACLU plans to file its own response by September 14.
Attorneys in the consolidated FOIA cases are Bargzie, and Jameel Jaffer of the national ACLU, Meredith Fuchs of the National Security Archive, Marc Rotenberg of EPIC, and Art Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.
• Today’s court order is available online at:
www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/31560lgl20070905.html
• More information on NSA surveillance is online at:
www.aclu.org/nsaspying
