New Documents Unsealed in ACLU and NYCLU Patriot Act Challenge
Documents Confirm Existence of ""John Doe"" Client, Who Says He Fears Abuse of Government Powers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today made public its brief and supporting documents asking a court to strike down a controversial provision of the Patriot Act. Among the documents is a heavily censored declaration that confirms, for the first time, the existence of the ACLU's anonymous client in the case.
The "National Security Letter" provision at issue allows the government to demand sensitive customer records from businesses without judicial oversight. The ACLU and its New York affiliate are also challenging a provision of the law that imposes a broad gag order on any entity that receives a National Security Letter, or NSL.
"The gag provision silences those who are most likely to oppose the Patriot Act," ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said in his affidavit to the court. "It is particularly troubling" he said, that while the ACLU has been gagged from discussing the Patriot Act power, "President Bush and representatives of the FBI and Justice Department are engaged in a public campaign in support of the Patriot Act."
The ACLU is engaged in an ongoing dispute with the government over the extent of the sealing order in the case. Among the documents the ACLU posted for the first time today are the declaration of its "John Doe" client - an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
"The government has now prohibited the disclosure of my name and my company's name in connection with the case," Doe said in his declaration to the court. "They have provided no further clarification about what I can and cannot say."
"I believe that the government may be abusing its power by targeting people with unpopular views," Doe said. "I am challenging the constitutionality of the NSL provision in an effort to protect all of my clients' interests. "I have no doubt that [blacked-out] ISPs, such as America Online, must have received at least one of these NSLs. Because of the gag order, however, I am not able to contact them [blacked-out]." (Note: Words or statements blacked-out by court order are indicated in brackets.)
Among other documents the ACLU posted today are a declaration from Internet expert Simson Garfinkel, a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Salon.com, the U.S. Internet Industry Association and others, and another friend-of-the-court brief filed by the American Library Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the Freedom to Read Foundation.
The briefs detail the groups' concerns that the law will have a chilling effect on communications online. As Garfinkel and the advocacy groups pointed out in their filings, the National Security Letter provision covers not only ISPs but any group that allows users to send messages from its website, such as the ACLU or Moveon.org.
Judge Victor Marrero has issued an order establishing a procedure for making redacted versions of sealed documents available to the public as soon as possible. Under that procedure, the ACLU and NYCLU are challenging further redactions of the documents posted today and will update their websites regularly as new or revised documents become available.
According to the court's briefing schedule, the government will respond to the ACLU's brief on June 7, 2004; all briefing will be completed in July 2004. The court has not indicated whether any hearings will be open to the media and the public.
Attorneys in the case are Ann Beeson, Jameel Jaffer and Sharon McGowan of the ACLU, and Arthur Eisenberg of the NYCLU.
For more information on the Patriot Act and National Security Letters, including access to all documents unsealed by the court, go to /nsl
National Security
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
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VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
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Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.