What are National Security Letters?
A federal appeals court may have slapped the Federal Bureau of Investigation last year for its misuse of gag orders to prevent discussion of government investigations conducted under the authority of National Security Letters, but that hasn’t slowed the feds very much. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, despite a court’s finding that such gag orders are constitutionally suspect and should be subject to judicial review, the FBI continues to muzzle recipients of the controversial letters, preventing them from participating in public debate over the Patriot Act and the security state.
But, says the ACLU, the FBI is “continuing to unconstitutionally enforce its five-year-old gag order on a John Doe NSL recipient and his ACLU attorneys.”
“The FBI’s misuse of its gag power continues to prevent NSL recipients like Doe – who have the best first-hand knowledge of the FBI’s use and abuse of NSL power – from participating in the Patriot Act debate in Congress,” said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.
Unable to speak out about their experiences as the subjects of National Security Letters, recipients of such letters, including businesspeople and librarians, can only stand on the sidelines while the discussion is conducted in theoretical terms.
Worse, the ACLU maintains that the gag order on its John Doe client is being used to suppress the revelation that an NSL was used in a search for records it was not legally entitled to obtain.</em>
