Adventures of the Coconut Caucus

It’s a new level of low when immigrants have to do the job that not even other immigrants want to do, like, say upholding the constitution and stuff.

Judge rules against parts of the Patriot Act

A federal judge struck down parts of America’s top anti-terror law as unconstitutional Thursday, saying courts must be allowed to supervise cases where the government orders Internet providers to turn over records without telling customers.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said the government orders must be subject to meaningful judicial review and that the recently rewritten USA Patriot Act “offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers.”

The law had been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union (which need I remind you is also headed by a Latino that is doing all of the work that Gonzalo didn’t want to do), which complained that the revised law allowed the FBI to demand records without the kind of court order required for other government searches.

The ACLU said it was improper to issue so-called national security letters, or NSLs — investigative tools used by the FBI to compel businesses to turn over customer information — without a judge’s order or grand jury subpoena. Examples of such businesses include Internet service providers, telephone companies and public libraries.

In 2004, ruling on the initial version of the Patriot Act, the judge said the letters violate the U.S. Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. He found that the nondisclosure requirement — under which an Internet service provider, for instance, would not be allowed to tell customers that it was turning over their records to the government — violated free speech.

Marrero originally ruled in a case pertaining to an unidentified Internet service provider that received one of the letters, in which the FBI claimed that phone or Internet records were “relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”

Okay so then this goes on to say something about how there’s no balance between the three branches of government plus Cheney’s imaginary flex branch, it’s so unfair, blah blah blah, but the main point is that if you want something really done, you gotta call a puerto rican instead of a brown man who is married to a blonde.