Judge Rules FBI's Secretive Requests for Customers' Information Are Unconstitutional
A federal judge in San Francisco, California has ruled that the thousands of the FBI’s secretive requests for customers’ information are unconstitutional. The agency sends national security letters to banks and phone companies every year, demanding customer info without any judicial review.
Last Friday, the judge ruled that the government failed to
show that the letters and a blanket non-disclosure policy “serve the compelling need of national security.” The recipients of the letters are banned from making them public, which the judge ruled violated the First Amendment.
Fox News judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said the statute under the Patriot Act is unconstitutional. “How can Congress make it a crime for people to talk about government seizing private information without going to judges first?”
He maintained that, “People have a right to know when their records are being seized and they have a right to talk about it public.”
