Ashcroft Says Likely to Appeal U.S. Patriot Act Ruling
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SCHEVENINGEN, Netherlands  - U.S. Attorney General  John Ashcroft said on Thursday the Bush administration was  likely to appeal against a U.S. District Court ruling that part  of the Patriot Act was unconstitutional.
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Attorney General John Ashcroft did not violate anti-lobbying laws when he gave a series of speeches last year promoting the anti-terror Patriot Act, Justice Department internal investigators have concluded.
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Departing Attorney General John  Ashcroft, dealt several court defeats over U.S. anti-terrorism  policies, on Friday derided what he called judges'  second-guessing of the president's decisions.
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Suspected terrorists challenging their detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should have access to limited classified government material while the Bush administration seeks to stop their lawsuits in federal appeals court, a judge said Thursday.
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CAMP DAVID, Maryland  - Stung by a judge's ruling,   President George W. Bush said on Friday he expects U.S. courts   to uphold his belief that a National Security Agency   eavesdropping program does not violate U.S. civil rights.
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The U.S. government may pursue the  death penalty for accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias  Moussaoui if he is convicted, a federal appeals court  reaffirmed on Monday, clearing the way for his trial to  proceed.
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Former Attorney General John Ashcroft confirmed the Bush administration was sharply divided over the legality of President Bush's most controversial eavesdropping work, the chairman of a congressional panel said Thursday.
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A provision of the controversial Patriot Act which allowed the FBI to clandestinely demand information from ISPs has been ruled unconstitutional.
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Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said yesterday that federal courts have endangered national security by ruling against the Bush administration on issues related to the war on terrorism.
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. district judge has struck down a part of the anti-terrorism-inspired Patriot Act that requires telephone and Internet service providers to turn over records to the government without telling customers. Judge Victor Marrero, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, ruled Thursday that the Patriot Act provision that allows the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation toÂ obtain ISP and telecom subscribers' billing, calling, and Web surfing recordsÂ without court approval violates the U.S. Constitution. Marrero ordered the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice to stop issuing so-calledÂ national security letters, or NSLs, requiring ISPs to turn over subscriber records. The NSL program prohibited ISPs from telling customers that they were being investigated. Marrero delayed the order pending a DOJ appeal of his decision. The NSL program under the Patriot Act violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as a restraint on free speech, the judge said in his 107-page order. The program also bypasses judicial oversight of the requests, Marrero said. The NSL program could allow the FBI to unmask the identity of Internet users posting anonymous comments, obtain all of the e-mail messages of an Internet user, and even find out all the Web sites a user has visited, Marrero said. "In light of the seriousness of the potential intrusion into the individual's personal affairs and the significant possibility of a chilling effect on speech and association -- particularly of expression that is critical of the government or its policies -- a compelling need exists to ensure that the use of NSLs is subject to the safeguards of public accountability," the judge wrote. The DOJ is reviewing the decision and considering its options, a spokesman said. The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit against the DOJ and FBI, praised Marrero's decision. "Courts have a constitutionally mandated role to play when national security policies infringe on First Amendment rights," Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, said in a statement. "A statute that allows the FBI to silence people without meaningful judicial oversight is unconstitutional." The U.S. Congress passed the Patriot Act less than two months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Congress, under pressure from President George Bush, reauthorized the Patriot Act in 2006. Many civil liberties groups have criticized the law for being overly broad and targeting innocent U.S. residents. Marrero in 2004 ruled that the NSL provisions of the Patriot Act violated the Constitution because they amounted to unreasonable search and seizure. After the 2006 revisions to the Patriot Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sent the case back to Marrero for a ruling on whether the NSL provisions were still unconstitutional. The FBI's use of the NSL program, which existed before the Patriot Act, has ballooned since the law was passed, Marrero noted. In 2000, the FBI issued about 8,500 NSL requests, and the number of requests rose to 56,000 in 2004, he wrote. The NSL program's "most troubling" aspect, Marrero wrote, is that it attempts to bypass judicial review of law enforcement requests. The program "reflects an attempt by Congress and the executive to infringe upon the judiciary's designated role under the Constitution," he wrote.
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SCHEVENINGEN, Netherlands Attorney General John Ashcroft says the Justice Department will probably appeal yesterday&#39;s court ruling that says part of the Patriot Act violates the constitution.
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The Supreme Court said on Friday it would hear appeals by Guantanamo prisoners on their right to challenge their indefinite confinement, a test of President George W. Bush's powers in the war on terrorism.
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Maybe it was just a coincidence that a federal judge in New York struck down an important provision of the USA Patriot Act on the very day that the House Judiciary Committee was scheduled to debate its future scope and effect.
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The U.S. Supreme Court said on Friday it would hear appeals by Guantanamo prisoners on their right to challenge their indefinite confinement, a test of President George W. Bush's powers in the war on terrorism.
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Nevada representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union are hailing a federal judge&#39;s ruling against part of the Patriot Act that the FBI used to get casinos and airlines to turn over records of thousands of Las Vegas visitors.
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Departing Attorney General John Ashcroft, dealt several court defeats over US anti-terrorism policies, on Friday derided what he called judges&#39; second-guessing of the president&#39;s decisions.
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. appeals court has ordered that a lawsuit against the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) for a wiretapping program be dismissed because the plaintiffs haven't been hurt by the agency's actions. A divided three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled Friday that the lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a group of journalists, lawyers and academics, be sent back to a district court judge to be dismissed. In August 2006, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ruled the NSA program, which monitored telephone and Internet communications without court-ordered warrants, was illegal. The appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs didn't prove they'd been affected by the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program, authorized by U.S. President George Bush in 2002. The program allowed the NSA to monitor communications between U.S. residents and people in other countries with suspected ties to terrorist group al Qaeda. The plaintiffs argued, among other things, that the program violated the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, protecting U.S. citizens against unreasonable search and seizure. But none of the plaintiffs could prove their Fourth-Amendment rights had been violated, wrote appeals court Judge Alice Batchelder. "The plaintiffs cannot show they have been or will be subject to surveillance personally," Batchelder wrote. The plaintiff's attempts to sue for other reasons, including violation of their First-Amendment, free-speech rights, are a "thinly veiled ruse," the judge added. None of the plaintiffs has shown that their speech has been hindered, she wrote. Neither the ACLU nor the U.S. Department of Justice, which appealed the lower court ruling on behalf of the NSA, were immediately available for comment on the ruling. Judge Ronald Lee Gilman disagreed with the two-judge majority, arguing that the NSA program violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which establishes wiretapping procedures, including warrants. "When faced with the clear wording of FISA ... the conclusion becomes inescapable that [the program] was unlawful," he wrote.