Gagged for 6 Years National Security Letter Plaintiff Finally Free To Speak

[skids]

Run time: 06:16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N31pCzyFIP0   Posted on YouTube: August 11, 2010 By YouTube Member: mediagrrl9 Views on YouTube: 50   Posted on DU: August 12, 2010 By DU Member: skids Views on DU: 771

 

“After six long years of not being able to tell anyone at all what happened to me – not even my family – I’m grateful to finally be able to talk about my experience of being served with a national security letter,” Merrill said in a statement. “Internet users do not give up their privacy rights when they log on, and the FBI should not have the power to secretly demand that ISPs turn over constitutionally protected information about their users without a court order. I hope my successful challenge to the FBI’s NSL gag power will empower others who may have received NSLs to speak out.”

The letters come with a life-long gag order, so businesses that receive such letters are prohibited from revealing to anyone, including customers who may be under investigation, that the government has requested records of transactions. Violation of a gag order can be punishable by up to five years in prison.

In Merrill’s case, although the letter’s gag order “was totally clear that they were saying that I couldn’t speak to a lawyer” about it, he immediately contacted his personal attorney, and together they went to the ACLU in New York, which agreed to represent him.

“My gut feeling is I’m an American,” Merrill said, in an interview with Threat Level on Tuesday. “I always have a right to an attorney. There’s no such thing as you can’t talk to your attorney.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifted/

I knew this guy briefly back in the 90s, and he's one of the good guys that will always stand up for both his rights and yours.

[bertman]

1. American Heroes: you will never hear about them on the Corporate TeeVee

news and probably not even in the Corporate print media, but they are the kind of heroes we should be celebrating.

Rec.

[Roci]

2. People have wondered why

I'm less than enthusiastic about the way things have gone under President Obama. This sort of un-American, unconstitutional rubbish left over from the reign and plunder-fest of The Village Idiot is one of the reasons. President Obama could end things like this with a single hand written sheet of paper. (That is how they began, by the way) The fact that they didn't end January 21, 2009, along with a lot of other "stuff" might be semi-excusable, given the load of steaming cow dung he was stranded with after taking the Oath of Office. But it's been a year and a half. Warrantless wiretaps continue, as does the "freezing out" of the FISA court written into the law that the President is sworn to uphold, rather than find a way to get around it like the brigands who occupied the White House before we cleaned house.

Barack Obama was elected to right wrongs. That's what good, effective, historic Presidents do.. Ask FDR, Truman, and Lincoln. President Obama was elected with a mandate. It's a bill of particulars from a people who have been brought up to believe, rightly, that this sort of thing does not happen, and ought not happen in a free Nation. The ugly truth here is that each time this happens to someone, and every minute that our President allows this sort of travesty to continue, it gives a victory to the villains and madmen who brought the Towers down, and it furthers their goal of destroying the America that we were, until we were lead into becoming a nation of craven rabbits, rather than the Nation that gave the world it's first enduring, working democracy.
Americans are by nature a bold people. We need to remember that again.We need to cast down the injustices perpetrated in our names by people who would use fear as a weapon to beat American Liberty into the dust pile that almost choked out freedom and us nearly ten years ago in Lower Manhattan.

Mr President, I want my America back again, and if you don't have the fortitude to make that happen, I'll find and vote for someone else who will. How about some ACTION??

Roci

[mackerel]

3. Thanks for the link

[ThomCat]

4. Exactly!

Cleaning up shit like this was what we voted for. Cleaning up Bush's shit like this is what he promised to do once he got elected. His about face, suddenly supporting and continuing Bush's policies that he criticized on the campaign trail was a huge betrayal.