Patriot Abuse
By Janet Nocek, The Hartford Courant
When the USA Patriot Act was being reauthorized in 2005, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales claimed that not one single abuse of the “national security letters” provision had been reported.
It must be his poor memory that caused Mr. Gonzales to tell Congress that no abuse had been reported. What else would explain why he did not mention the reports that described abuses and mismanagement of NSLs – which we now discover were in his possession before his testimony?
I was one of four library colleagues who challenged an NSL in the courts around the time of its reauthorization. We were under a gag order because of the nondisclosure provision of the NSL section of the Patriot Act. This happened even though a judge with high-level security clearance had declared that there was no risk in identifying us as recipients of an NSL.
We were therefore not allowed to testify to Congress about our experience with the letters – which seek information, without court review, on people like library users.