"John Doe challenges PATRIOT Act gag order"

[dbeach]

I LUV LIBRARIANS.

John Doe challenges PATRIOT Act gag orde

http://www.vermontguardian.com/dailies/092005/0927.shtml

"John Doe challenges PATRIOT Act gag order
BRIDGEPORT, CT — In August, a Connecticut library organization was served with a national security letter demanding sensitive information about patrons, including borrowed materials and Internet use. And since the USA PATRIOT Act says that anyone who receives such a letter is prohibited from ever telling anyone about the demand, this organization is known only as John Doe.

Nevertheless, Doe decided to challenge the secret letter in court, and on Sept. 9 U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall said the gag order violates the First Amendment. "John Doe" has a First Amendment right to engage in the "current and lively debate in this country over the renewal of the PATRIOT Act," she ruled. An appeal by the government is expected.

According to a column in the Hartford Courant by Christine Bradley, director of the Connecticut Library Consortium, librarians are “concerned about the disastrous effect of the PATRIOT Act on their professional responsibility to protect the privacy of patrons.” Debate over its re-authorization is underway in Congress.


Bradley predicts that “these brave Connecticut Yankees will show lawmakers that the way to be a patriot is to protect civil liberties. Librarians, booksellers and others are concerned about the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure, and the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.”

[skooooo]

1. thanks for posting this

[sepia_steel]

2. GO JOHN DOE!!

Don't back down.

[PowerToThePeople]

3. Bravo!

:applause:

[nankerphelge]

4. Get ready for this as the next big issue...

the renewal of the Patriot Act is coming up on the agenda soon in both the House and Senate. At the very least, they seem to have stopped talking about adding more onerous provisions. Still, renewal of the problematic provisions that currently exist would not be good.

[bonito]

5. Got my vote!

[Justice]

6. thank you Judge Hall

[bananas]

7. Hurray for local newspapers!

Maybe they will bring back "freedom of the press"!
It seemed like only the foreign press was covering the real news.

[countmyvote4real]

8. Unfortunately, the new CJ of the SCOTUS…

does not believe that citizens have any right to privacy.

Even more tragic, Roberts will be confirmed by a host of Democratic Senators. So, even if we ever manage to get a progressive majority in Congress and the Executive branch, our goals will ultimately be overturned by the SCOTUS until it is once again balanced. Damn these lifetime appointments and the Dems who don’t vote like they should.

[Barad Simith]

9. OH MY GOD

"...the USA PATRIOT Act says that anyone who receives such a letter is prohibited from ever telling anyone about the demand..."

How can anyone support this administration after reading that they no longer have an absolute right to tell the truth. I'm too disgusted to include a question mark at the end of that sentence.

[LostinVA]

10. The ALA and ACLU have been trying for years to get someone

To do this. Goddess be with him.

Go librarians!

[dbeach]

11. the meek shall inherit the earth

LIBRARIANS ROCK!!!

[dbeach]

12. Maciavellian Mayberryians

Prof.Boyle names neo-con names and theri deal with the devil
This is so worth a read..


http://www.counterpunch.org/boyle08022003.html
"It is now a matter of public record that immediately after the terrible tragedy of September 11, 2001, U.S. Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld and his pro-Israeli "Neoconservative" Deputy Paul Wolfowitz began to plot, plan, scheme and conspire to wage a war of aggression against Iraq by manipulating the tragic events of September 11th in order to provide a pretext for doing so. Of course Iraq had nothing at all to do with September 11th or supporting Al-Qaeda . But that made no difference to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the numerous other pro-Israeli Neo-cons in the Bush Jr. administration.

These pro-Israeli Neo-cons had been schooled in the Machiavellian/Nietzschean theories of Professor Leo Strauss, who taught political philosophy at the University of Chicago in their Department of Political Science. The best expose of Strauss's pernicious theories on law, politics, government, for elitism, and against democracy can be found in two scholarly books by the Canadian Professor Shadia B. Drury: The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (1988); Leo Strauss and the American Right (1999). I entered the University of Chicago in September of 1968 shortly after Strauss had retired. But I was trained in Chicago's Political Science Department by Strauss's foremost protege, co-author, and literary executor Joseph Cropsey. Based upon my personal experience as an alumnus of Chicago's Political Science Department (A.B., 1971, in Political Science), I concur completely with Professor Drury's devastating critique of Strauss. I also agree with her penetrating analysis of the degradation of the American political process by Chicago's Straussian cabal.

Chicago routinely trained me and numerous other students to become ruthless and unprincipled Machiavellians. That is precisely why so many neophyte Neo-con students gravitated towards the University of Chicago or towards Chicago Alumni at other universities. The University of Chicago became the "brains" behind the Bush Jr. Empire and his Ashcroft Police State. Attorney General John Ashcroft received his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1967. Many of his "lawyers" at the Department of Injustice are members of the right-wing, racist, bigoted, reactionary, and totalitarian Federalist Society (aka "Feddies"), which originated in part at the University of Chicago.


According to his own public estimate and boast before the American Enterprise Institute, President Bush Jr. hired about 20 Straussians to occupy key positions in his administration, many holding offices where they could push American foreign policy in favor of Israel and against its chosen enemies such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the Palestinians. It was the Chicago Straussian cabal of pro-Israeli Neo-cons who set up a separate "intelligence" unit within the Pentagon that was responsible for manufacturing many of the bald-faced lies, deceptions, half-truths, and outright propaganda that the Bush Jr. administration then disseminated to the lap-dog U.S. news media in order to generate public support for a war of aggression against Iraq for the benefit of Israel and in order to steal Iraq's oil. To paraphrase something Machiavelli once advised his Prince in Chapter XVIII of that book: Those who want to deceive will always find those willing to be deceived. As I can attest from my personal experience as an alumnus of the University of Chicago Department of Political Science, the Bible of Chicago's pro-Israeli Neo-con Straussian cabal is Machiavelli's The Prince."

[earth mom]

13. Yes! Love those librarians! nt