“National security” head fake

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Back in April 2004, the ACLU brought a case against the United States government in which they argued that the FBI had no right to demand sensitive customer information from an unnamed internet company. In the case, the FBI had claimed that the Patriot Act expressly gave the agency this power, and moreover, that it could prevent the internet company from even informing its customers of the info handover. Eventually, a New York judge, Victor Marrero, declared this portion of the Patriot Act unconstitutional, and ruled against the FBI.

As mentioned, this case took place way back in April, and Judge Marrero’s ruling made the headlines, but details of the case itself were placed under a gag order by the U.S. government. It was only yesterday that the ACLU released documents from the case. Apparently, the government wanted some of the documents kept from the public solely because they contained the words “sensitive,” “national security,” or “FBI”. Even an ACLU letter to Judge Marrero objecting to the gag order was kept from the public. Looking through the documents, it’s hard to find anything that appears to be “sensitive information,” besides perhaps the ACLU’s argument that the FBI was doing something unconstitutional.

In a related vein, the administration has also been attempting to use the “state secrets privilege” to avoid even having to defend its actions in court. It is a growing body of evidence that reveals a systematic governmental effort to obscure basic information regarding the constitutional nature of the government’s actions from the public. This is all being done in the name of national security. The legitimacy behind this censorship should certainly be called into question.

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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