Today I became aware of interesting recent events involving the ACLU, the Department of Justice, and the Patriot Act.

Apparently, the ACLU is challenging the "National Security Letters" provision of the Patriot Act [link], which allows the FBI to order telephone companies, Internet service providers, banks, credit bureaus, and other businesses to produce records about their customers without a court order or the approval of a judge. The FBI was already capable of exercising this power prior to the Patriot Act, but only against suspected terrorists and foreign spies. The Patriot Act, however, removes restrictions on the use of this authority, and the ACLU alleges that the FBI can now use this power to obtain information about any citizen, for any reason, without providing a justification.

Now here's where it gets interesting. The Patriot Act also includes measures that shroud uses of National Security Letters in secrecy. If a company is served a National Security Letter and required to turn over its customer records, the company is compelled by a permanent gag order to not reveal that this has occurred! These secrecy requirements also (somehow) prevented the ACLU from revealing that they were filing a lawsuit to challenge the measures. Several weeks ago, the ACLU managed to win a special exception that allowed them to reveal the existence of the legal challenge [link] (that's why we now know that any of this is going on at all). When this occurred, the ACLU posted a press release about the case.

The next day, however, the ACLU was forced by the court to remove two paragraphs from the webpage with the press release [link]. One was simply some court briefing schedule. The other, however, was the following, according to the Washington Post.

The provision under challenge allows an FBI agent to write a letter demanding the disclosure of the name, screen names, addresses, e-mail header information, and other sensitive information held by 'electronic communication service providers.'

What? The types of information that the FBI can order disclosed are a secret? I tell you, it just gets creepier and creepier. Not only are uses of these National Security Letters kept secret, but the specific powers they grant to the FBI are now apparently secret!

Update:
The ACLU has since succeeded in striking down the National Security Letters provision of the Patriot Act as unconstitutional. Yay to the ACLU, the courts, and the constitution! Federal judge Victor Marrero, who issued the ruling, had strong words criticizing the provision stating, "democracy abhors undue secrecy".