A federal judge has struck down parts of the new U.S.A. Patriot Act that authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation to acquire corporate records using informal secret demands called national security letters.
The law allowed the F.B.I. to force communications companies, including telephone and Internet providers, to turn over their customers’ records without court authorization and permanently to forbid the companies from discussing what they had done. Under the law, enacted last year, the ability of the courts to review challenges to the ban on disclosures was quite limited.
The judge, Victor Marrero of the Federal District Court in Manhattan, ruled that the law violated the First Amendment and the separation of powers guaranteed by the Constitution.
The Dems rolled over and played dead for the rote White House terror propaganda. Fortunately, the judge wasn’t auditioning for a role as political wimp.
Judge Marrero wrote that he feared the law could be the first step in a series of intrusions into the role of the judiciary that would be “the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.”
Judge Marrero used harsher language and evocative historical analogies in criticizing the aspect of the new law that imposed restrictions on the courts’ ability to review the F.B.I.’s determinations.
“When the judiciary lowers its guard on the Constitution, it opens the door to far-reaching invasions of privacy,” Judge Marrero wrote, pointing to discredited Supreme Court cases endorsing the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War and racially segregated railroad cars in the 19th century.
“The only thing left of the judiciary’s function for those Americans in that experience,” he wrote, “was a symbolic act: to sing a requiem and lower the flag on the Bill of Rights.”
Neocons would love that. DINO’s haven’t the courage to oppose it. Primary time is coming and not just for presidential candidates.
Hee hee! There’s hope for America yet.
It is sad that our rights are only protected by judges and not our “representatives”.
Let’s wait and see how quickly this ruling’s appealed by a sympathetic judge and left on the books as it is now.
#1, Mr. Mustard, There’s hope for America yet.
It appears there’s actually a redpill judge! Who’d have guessed?
#2 the only reason bushco has allowed the congress to continue functioning this long is because the previous conservative majority did whatever he told them to, and the way current democratic majority rolls over, disbanding the congress won’t be necessary — besides if anything goes wrong he can just blame the dems. it’s a win-win!
god save the king!
This is great news!! Yippee!! Let’s hope like hell that this does not get appealed to the Supremes who would almost certainly overturn this great decision. Let’s hope for more rulings along these lines. Our rights were hard fought and won. They are easy to give away and hard to win back once lost.
>>It appears there’s actually a redpill judge!
He can be brought back to The Path Of One ( http://tinyurl.com/376g59 ). Agent Smith will be all over that judge like stink on shit.
[If you use parentheses around URLs, allow a space between or it messes up the URL. – ed.]
#7 you’ll never get your liberty back once you relinquish it — once liberty is lost, the great experiment fails and the republic is no more.
i can only assume that is what conservatives want, because they simply can’t wait to give up their rights and liberties — they seem to believe that the government would never turn on them.
>>i can only assume that is what conservatives want, because
>>they simply can’t wait to give up their rights and liberties
Well, that may be what conservatives want (I haven’t seen any around in quite a while; do they still exist?).
What NEOCONS are most interested in though, is taking away the rights and liberties from the rest of us. Against our will.
#8, Mr. Mustard — let’s hope that are more like Judge Marrero and, like Neo, can whip the absolute jeebers out of feds like “Agent Smith!” Remember, there is no spoon.
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#9 Grog, You constantly confuse conservatives with some other types. I am conservative but I don’t want the Patriot Act (I or II). I don’t want warrantless wiretaps and I sure as hell do not want to give up any of my rights, not one.
This is a good decision by the Judge. In having these rulings stand, however, is not the further arguments that will be put forward during the appeals, but how well the Judge wrote his decision. If he based it upon law AND reason, then it becomes that much harder to overrule. A ruling that quotes the Constitution and past errors by courts (with their corrections) will stand a better chance of success.
#10 – MM,
Excellent point Musty. True conservatives don’t want change. There are precious few of those around. In fact, it is possible that in times when liberals have gotten what they wanted, that liberal and conservative would be synonymous. Has that ever happened? Probably not.
Anyway, neocons are reactionaries. They are trying to set the economy back to the good old days of unbridled capitalism, circa 1890, while simultaneously trying to set human rights back even further. On education though, they want that to go all the way back to around 1100AD.
Fun times to come.
So far the system of checks and balances appears to be working.
>>So far the system of checks and balances appears to be working.
Wait a while. Little King Georgie’s boys haven’t filed the appeals yet. They’ll do everything in their power to strip our rights from us, if it kills them.
#10, #12 & #14 good points — i will refer in the future to neocons
actually most conservatives i know are level-headed and are appalled by GW’s outrageous spending sprees, and disregard for constitutionally encoded liberties and protections
my one buddy quipped that GW gives drunken sailors a bad name.
heh.
#17 Ah yes, the good old days when I was that drunken sailor….
>he feared the law could be the first step in a series of intrusions into the role of the judiciary that would be “the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering,
That is supposed to be logical impartial reasoning? Voting your fears.
#15 “So far the system of checks and balances appears to be working.”
How are executive orders checked or balanced sans impeachment?
#19. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
If a search or seizure is unreasonable, a judge is obligated to call it so. If a legislative enactment could be construed to authorize such unreasonable searches, he is obligated to call it so, particularly in a case where the DoJ’s own inspector found that “that the bureau had often used the letters improperly and sometimes illegally.”
It is “writs of assistance” all over again – the 18th Century British practice that the Fourth Amendment was directed at.
So, why are judges having to do what the gutless democrats should have done?
#22 – sayuncle,
You answered your own question. The gutless Democraps are too gutless to fight the Repugnicans. And, the Democraps killed the Liberal party and made liberal a bad word, so there is no one else.
On freedom and liberty issues, liberals and libertarians are in complete agreement and need to band together.