David Hench reports: A federal judge will rule Wednesday on whether the state may require two national organizations that are working to repeal Maine’s gay-marriage law to disclose their contributors. The National Organization for Marriage and American Principles in Action have challenged the state campaign finance laws that apply to ballot question committees, arguing that…
Category: U.S.
Court case shows (yet again) limits of anonymous blogging
Jacqui Cheng reports: US courts have historically looked on anonymous bloggers and commenters with a sympathetic eye, but there are exceptions. A Tennessee judge denied a blogger’s motion to quash a subpoena to reveal his identity last week, and he also denied a motion to dismiss the case. With few other options available to him…
Privacy, free speech, and the PATRIOT Act: First and Fourth Amendment limits on national security letters
Patrick P. Garlinger has a Note in the October issue of the New York University Law Review. The abstract is: Congress’s passage of the Patriot Act after 9/11 expanded the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) information-gathering authority to issue national security letters (NSL). Without any judicial review, the FBI issues NSLs to telecommunications providers to…
Editorial: Privacy and the Patriot Act
In the aftermath of 9/11, legislators cut legal corners to protect the nation. Congress should amend that now by revising certain expiring provisions of the law. Along with the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and the Bush administration’s illegal eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, the USA Patriot Act came to symbolize the excesses of the post-9/11 war…