Robed heroes of liberty (Blumner/StPTimes)

[struggle4progress]

<snip> In these times, when the president thinks nothing of bulldozing the girders of our constitutional democracy in the name of national security, it has been the nation's federal judges - far more than Congress - who have acted as a collective bulwark against George Bush's wrecking crew of John Ashcroft and Donald Rumsfeld.

The latest example is a decision on Sept. 29 by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York. In a 120-page ruling, Marrero struck down a section of the USA Patriot Act that gave the FBI wide-ranging surveillance authority without having to get a judge's approval.

Under the Patriot Act, the Justice Department was given expanded authority to issue what are known as "National Security Letters."

This allowed the FBI, without court review, to demand all sorts of sensitive customer records held by businesses, including information from Internet service providers about the communications of whole groups of people. No evidence of individual wrongdoing had to be established before the FBI could snoop. All the government was required to claim was that the information sought was "relevant" to a terrorism or counterintelligence investigation. <snip>

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/10/Columns/Robed_heroes_of_liber.shtml

[Kenneth ken]

1. thanks

good writing as usual from Ms Blumner.

[struggle4progress]

2. I first saw her stuff last week but I really like it. eom