{"id":6187,"date":"2004-04-29T21:37:13","date_gmt":"2004-04-30T04:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/04\/29\/somewhere-kafka-is-smiling.html"},"modified":"2004-04-29T21:37:13","modified_gmt":"2004-04-30T04:37:13","slug":"somewhere_kafka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/04\/29\/somewhere_kafka.html","title":{"rendered":"Somewhere, Kafka is smiling"},"content":{"rendered":"

How charmingly Orwellian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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.
\nThe 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.
\n“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.”
\nA Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the case.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

(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.)<\/p>\n

(via BoingBoing<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homeland-security"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3057,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/08\/16\/dont_fear_our_b.html","url_meta":{"origin":6187,"position":0},"title":"Don’t fear our bombers …","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 16-Aug-02 6:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"... 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In a civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, relatives of hundreds killed in the attacks and some Sept. 11 survivors accused seven international...","rel":"","context":"In "9-11"","block_context":{"text":"9-11","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/9-11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9250,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/01\/feds_appeal_rul.html","url_meta":{"origin":6187,"position":1},"title":"Feds appeal ruling loss in the EFF\/AT&T case","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 1-Aug-06 3:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A few weeks back, Judge Vaughan Walker ruled that the EFF suit against AT&T for allegedly turning over phone records to the NSA -- an arguably illegal act -- could...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39254,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/20\/asshats-redux.html","url_meta":{"origin":6187,"position":2},"title":"Asshats, Redux","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 20-Oct-13 4:53pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Crikey. \u00a0\u00a0So,\u00a0to the question the asshats in question raised about whether they would be stupid enough to post a video of this on Facebook if they were actually doing something wrong, the answer is, \"Yeah, you're big enough dolts\u00a0to do exactly that.\"Reshared post from +Les JenkinsHey, remember those asshats that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1338,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/01\/22\/what_is_the_sou.html","url_meta":{"origin":6187,"position":3},"title":"What is the sound of the other shoe dropping?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 22-Jan-02 8:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"AOL Time Warner has filed suit against Micro$oft, seeking damages for its illegal monopolistic practices and the damage it did to Netscape (which AOL bought back in '99). Since the...","rel":"","context":"In "Hi-Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Hi-Tech","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/hi-tech"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6470,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/08\/30\/qed.html","url_meta":{"origin":6187,"position":4},"title":"QED","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 30-Aug-04 10:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Justice Department has argued that various court filings (e.g., the ACLU's filings against the PATRIOT Act, ongoing) need, as so many other documents need, redaction to keep sensitive material...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/16\/music_hark_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":6187,"position":5},"title":"Music, hark!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 16-Jun-03 9:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A judge has accepted the settlement in the CD price-fixing case. 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