The Cynic Says……

Interestingly, one very important part of the Patriot Act just got struck down by a judge. Basically, there was a part of the Patriot Act that allowed the FBI to send out a National Security Letter (NSL) to a telephone company, internet provider, wehbost, etc. to find out the identity of someone without a court order!. Basically this means that let’s say you make a blog post that’s critical of the government… The FBI can then send a letter to your ISP asking for all of your personal information without ever seeking approval from a judge. Even worse, it comes with a gag order that states the recipient of the NSL can not speak to anyone about it ever happening ever and the ban cannot be lifted ever. They can’t even talk to their lawyers and can’t even dispute the fact that they have to cough up your personal information! Thankfully that part of the act was struck down.
Here’s the original post on the matter.
Here’s the full article