February 5, 2004
Unreasonable
Somehow I missed this. As Bruce Schneier summarizes in the latest issue of his Crypto-Gram newsletter:
Last month Bush snuck into law one of the provisions of the failed PATRIOT ACT 2. The FBI can now obtain records from financial institutions without requiring permission from a judge. The institution can't tell the target person that his records were taken by the FBI. And the term "financial institution" has been expanded to include insurance companies, travel agencies, real estate agents, stockbrokers, the U.S. Postal Service, jewelry stores, casinos, and car dealerships.
How does one challenge this in court? It's my understanding that in order to do so, one would have to demonstrate injury (what's the Lawyery word for that?). This law makes it illegal to notify the potential plaintiff that they've been the victim of an unconstitutional search. Perhaps that fact would come forth during a trial, but it seems just as likely that such a trial would be in the form of a military tribunal. Or, if the defendant has been declared an enemy combatant, there might be no trial at all.
Posted by cradle at February 5, 2004 6:45 PMnice graphic!
though the Bruce Schneier personal URL is wrong . . .
I'm not sure how you would go about it -- I'm seeing either something like the ACLU going after it (who have been tremendously quiet from what I've seen post 9/11 in terms of trying to fight the feds on this), or someone is going to be busted using it, and their lawyers will appeal that it's unconstitutional somehow.
either way, it's another good reason to start learning dutch.
Posted by: Doug W at February 5, 2004 10:09 PMOops, thanks. It's "Schneier," not "Schnier." Fixed.
I actually stole the graphic from this site.
Posted by: David at February 5, 2004 10:51 PM