American Civil Liberties Union

There has never been a more urgent need to preserve fundamental privacy protections and our system of checks and balances than the need we face today, as illegal government spying, provisions of the Patriot Act and government-sponsored torture programs transcend the bounds of law and our most treasured values in the name of national security.


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Ideological Exclusion

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Government Gag Exposed (8/19/2004)

The feature below shows the danger of giving the government unchecked power to censor speech in the name of national security. The National Security Letter (NSL) section of the USA Patriot Act contains a gag provision that prohibits anyone who receives an NSL from ""disclos[ing] to any person that the [FBI] has sought or obtained access to information or records.""

The gag provision continues to prevent the ACLU from disclosing to the public a vast amount of innocuous, non-sensitive information about our constitutional challenge to the NSL power. For example, the government has demanded that the ACLU redact a sentence that described its anonymous client's business as "provid[ing] clients with the ability to access the Internet." The government even insisted that the ACLU black out a direct quote from a Supreme Court case in our brief. ("The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.' Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent.")

The ACLU continues to contest the government's redactions in the case. The documents below highlight speech that the government suppressed in the case, but the Court later allowed us to disclose. Here is what the government didn't want you to see.

 

> Letter from the Department of Justice
> Letter from the ACLU
> Amended Complaint for Declaratory
and Injunctive Relief
> John Doe Declaration
> FBI Declaration
> Plaintiffs' Reply
> Declaration of Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director
> Amended Complaint
> Excerpts from Memorandum in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment
> Memorandum in Support of Motion to Unseal Redacted Documents
> Excerpts from Declaration of Anthony Romero
> Excerpts from Declaration of John Doe
> ACLU Letter Disputing Government Redactions (5/14/04)
> ACLU Letter to Judge Regarding Content on ACLU Website (4/30/04)
> ACLU Press Release (4/26/04)
> Government Letter to Judge Defending Redactions (5/12/04)
> Second Government Letter to Judge Regarding Content on ACLU Website (4/30/04)
> Government Letter to Judge Demanding Removal of Content from ACLU Website (4/29/04)
> Joint Letter to Unseal Portions of the Complaint (4/26/04)

 

 



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