US District Judge Ann Aiken ruled Wednesday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act were unconstitutional because the law “permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment.”
“A shift to a nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited,” Aiken wrote in her 44-page opinion, “as well as ill-advised.”
The case centered around a Portland attorney, Brandon Mayfield, who was arrested and put in jail after the FBI mistakenly linked him to a Spanish terrorist attack. Mayfield’s home and law office were secretly searched, files were copied, telephones were tapped, and a FISA court issued a warrant for surveillance bugs in his office. As a result, the US government apologized and paid Mayfield US$2 million.
Earlier in the month US District Judge Victor Marrero in New York found unconstitutional provisions of the law that allow law enforcement agencies to obtain e-mail and telephone data without a warrant. The US government had been obtaining such material from commercial providers through the use of secret national security letters.
In his 103-page opinion, Marrero wrote that the secrecy was “the legislative equivalent of breaking and entering, with an ominous free pass to the hijacking of constitutional values.”
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