| Diarist Steve W recently urged Senator Tester to keep his campaign promise and repeal the Patriot Act. Enter Senator Russ Feingold's S. 2088, the National Security Reform Act of 2007, which fixes the National Security Letter statute of the Patriot act.
Jon Tester is co-sponsoring the bipartisan bill.
As the law is written, the government has the right to use NSLs to get data from Internet service providers, financial record holders, and telecommunications companies of everyday Americans without a warrant. Those presented with an NSL were bound to secrecy by the law's "gag rule," opening up the Patriot Act for abuse.
And boy was it abused.
Since the revelations that the FBI was abusing the use of NSLs, a federal judge struck down the NSL portions of the Patriot Act as "unconstitutional," violating Americans' First Amendment rights, as well as the Constitution's separation of powers provisions:
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.
Feingold's bill would fix the problems in the Patriot Act. It would require that NSLs are closely monitored and subject to Congressional oversight and limit the gag order associated with NSLs. In short, Feingold's bill puts the Constitution back into the process, ensuring that the powers vested by the law to the administration are not abused.
Thanks to Jon for his support of Senator Feingold's bill. It's one step more to help ensure Americans' individual rights under the Constitution.
Now about immunity for telecomms... |
