How charmingly Orwellian:
The American Civil Liberties Union disclosed yesterday that it filed a lawsuit three weeks ago challenging the FBI’s methods of obtaining many business records, but the group was barred from revealing even the existence of the case until now.
The lawsuit was filed April 6 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the case was kept under seal to avoid violating secrecy rules contained in the USA Patriot Act, the ACLU said. The group was allowed to release a redacted version of the lawsuit after weeks of negotiations with the government.
“It is remarkable that a gag provision in the Patriot Act kept the public in the dark about the mere fact that a constitutional challenge had been filed in court,” Ann Beeson, the ACLU’s associate legal director, said in a statement. “President Bush can talk about extending the life of the Patriot Act, but the ACLU is still gagged from discussing details of our challenge to it.”
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the case.
It is certainly arguable that some of the increased search powers included in the USA PATRIOT act are necessary, even desirable. And I can certainly understand why, in the course of a n investigation, it might be desirable to have the entities where the search took place prevented from commenting about it, at least while the investigation continue.
But at a certain level, you reach a tipping point between necessary security and necessary freedom, and it occurs to this layman (without knowing more details of the actual provisions involved) that gagging even mention of a federal lawsuit regarding the USA PATRIOT Act seems quite certainly beyond that tipping point.
(I’m guessing that the gag order had to do with activities against a certain individual, which would tie into the name of the second plaintiff with the ACLU being redacted from the public copy of the complaint. so I can see how that might run afowl of the Act — but that still seems unreasonable.)
(via BoingBoing)
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” — Ben Franklin
“But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Hermann Goering
Re: Franklin — the question is what is “essential” and what is “temporary.” We all rightfully give up a certain measure of liberty for a certain amount of security. Where’s (as I said above) the tipping point?
Re: Goering — I’m not sure I want to make policy decisions or judgments based on the self-serving ramblings of a high Nazi official who was trying to say that Roosevelt and Churchill were just as culpable for making the war happen as Hitler or Stalin.
The Bush administration seems to want absolute authority, with no oversite, in complete secrecy, permanently. Trust them, they’ll only use it when truly necessary. Normal human frailties do not apply — you know why. Can you seriously imagine dedicated, patriotic neocons who truly believe that liberals are traitors handing that power over to those very traitors, ever? OK, sure, maybe they don’t really believe their propaganda. They are politicians and their lips are moving.
I’m not sure of the context of the Goering quote but the U.S. and G.B. REALLY WERE attacked in WW2, so if that’s what he was shooting for, he missed. It does illustrate his real opinions as an experienced political operator. You can look around at other countries and see the methods being applied in a dozen places right now and probably a thousand times in the last century. Bush’s — the neocons’ — methods of dealing with opposition smell like Goering’s to me.